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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24182053">Spell</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilsi/pseuds/Lilsi'>Lilsi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Bill (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:33:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>23,945</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24182053</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilsi/pseuds/Lilsi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Authors notes: Creepy-crawly, a fairy tale with a dubious moral. Includes bits that are designed to make your skin crawl and bits that one cannot avoid when Luke and Craig share a living space.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Luke Ashton/Craig Gilmore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Spell</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fanfiction was once posted at Craiggilmore.co.uk a fan site no longer active, so to preserve this story and others, I am importing them to AO3. I did not want the loss of such a large amount of amazing and wonderful fanfiction, it would be such a waste to fans of Craig Gilmore and Luke Ashton to not have the opportunity to enjoy these stories as i have. Since the site is no longer active i have been unable to contact the creators but if you happen to be them under a new pen name and want the fiction to be removed please send me a note!</p><p>Story written by - Baxter</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Part 1</p><p>Luke Ashton is a handsome young police officer. He lives alone in a dull little flat in South London and is gainfully employed with the Metropolitan Police. Luke is young – 25, maybe 26 – and, as you read, is coming to terms with some critical aspects of his true nature.</p><p>Just before you started reading, Craig Gilmore was a tall handsome police officer perfectly at ease with his true nature. He has just undertaken the tedious procedure of breaking up with a dishonest, deceitful and difficult boyfriend. Unfortunately for Craig he has not learnt that his horrible boyfriend is also exceedingly wicked.</p><p>“You can’t leave me!” the wicked boyfriend declares as Craig starts to leave his flat. “You can’t just walk out!”</p><p>“Watch me, Adrian,” Craig replies confidently as he turns to leave Adrian’s dark and gloomy flat for the last time.</p><p>Adrian is furious. “I’ll teach you!”  and  he certainly does, for Adrian is not only dishonest, deceitful, difficult and wicked – he is a witch. A bad witch.</p><p>As Adrian lunges towards Craig, smoke fills the room and light flashes around them.</p><p>“Now you’ll know what it’s like to be rejected!” Adrian sneers though the smoke at Craig, now confused and floundering on the floor.</p><p>Adrian’ spell is a complete success. Craig is scrambling hopelessly, completely overwhelmed by having so many legs and a body in three sections.</p><p>“For Christ’s sake Adrian!” he yells from the floor. “This is no solution! Turn me back!” Craig waves his long forelegs around in front of him; his thick sharp fangs glitter like coal.</p><p>Adrian smirks as he reaches for the broom. “There’s only one thing that will turn you back to the man you were. A kiss! A kiss from a handsome young man!”</p><p>Craig stops still, his mechanical-like legs extended mid air.</p><p>“That’s right, a kiss. And you’ll want to be quick, because you’ll never survive in the British cold.” Adrian strikes a pose and considers how long he will give Craig.</p><p>“A kiss?” Craig asks, waving his legs.</p><p>“A kiss from a handsome young man. You’ve got seven days,” he decides. The wicked witch snorts, clutching the broom as he surveys his handiwork. “Ha! Good luck!”</p><p>The broom waves over Craig’s his head; thousands of the minuscule wiry hairs that cover his large black body waiver like blades of grass in a breeze. The sensation startles him and he runs for his life towards the strip of daylight that glows at the bottom of the front door, narrowly missing being crushed to death by Adrian’s broom. </p><p>Craig scuttles out in to the garden, down a mossy path, under a fence, through another yard, over and under a series of flowering shrubs, through a private park, across another garden, into a churchyard, not stopping to catch his breath until he finds himself surrounded by large clumps of moss and towering grey stones. It takes a few moments for him to realise he is in a cemetery.</p><p>He slows down as he approaches the shadow of one of the gravestones. “This can’t be happening,” he tells himself over and over.</p><p>He tries to convince himself that it isn’t happening by moving his legs, counting as he goes.</p><p>One, two, three… He kept counting sadly.</p><p>Then he moves his hand to his mouth but instead of cool dry fingers over soft lips feels a blunt sensitive digit at the opening of his powerful jaws.</p><p>“Oh, yuck,” he says softly.</p><p>He tries to put his hand on his chest but instead uses his fifth leg to rub a furry, curiously warm bulbous abdomen.</p><p>“Oh, utter yuck,” he says, less softly and a little disgusted.</p><p>He looks around him for the first time and realises that his vision is almost panoramic, slightly skewed; everything is brighter yet not clearly defined. The edges of things seem a slightly blurred. He sees the silver lights of a large silver vessel, a little tarnished but bright enough to offer a reflection, on a grave a few feet away. Craig creeps over very slowly, trying to convince himself he is still a man, terrified he will soon learn otherwise.</p><p>Adrian was a bad witch but very talented at casting spells. A less focused bad witch might have succeeded only in cursing Craig with a few hours bad luck or faulty windscreen wipers; a nasty intense witch like Adrian has cursed his boyfriend properly. Craig spans eight inches in diameter, has a body as thick a cake of soap and two large sharp fangs that seem to shine with a mysterious wetness. His legs are as long as a man’s fingers, black and hairy with a remarkably pretty cobalt glow in sunlight. His eyes are tiny black specks in the middle of his head, his ears are delicate nests of tiny fine hairs below his eyes. His senses are disproportionately heightened; sounds are indistinct but he can tell immediately the direction in which they travel while the scents of things seem to come in heavy layers from the ground up. He sees things around him quite clearly but objects in his immediate range are gently blurred.</p><p>And he feels everything. The ground beneath him seems to hum and tremble as thousands of life forms shudder and breathe; the movement of the grass around him, the slight breeze, even the tiny sway of leaves falling from the surrounding trees register all through his body in waves.</p><p>The movement of the gravel under his limbs causes Craig to walk cautiously towards the silver urn. He lifts his head slowly to see himself as he is now and what he sees makes him jump – he’s huge, terrifying, black and ugly.</p><p>“OH ABSOLUTE AND COMPLETE UTTER YUCK!” Craig says at the top of his voice.</p><p>He runs away from the reflection as fast as he can, hiding under an old crumbling piece of tombstone and curling his hideous legs around his body, blocking the light from his eyes so he can’t see anything.</p><p>“Maybe if I get some rest I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and it’ll all have been a bad dream,” he tells himself as the warmth of his little hiding plate lulls him to sleep.</p><p>Part Two</p><p> </p><p>As the sun rises over London twelve hours later, Craig wakes not to he sound of the world but to the feel of it beneath him. He keeps very still as the earth shakes and shakes. The shaking is accompanied by whistling; he realises that a man is walking nearby.</p><p>When the earth is still again Craig peeks out from his behind old piece of decaying rock and looks through the grass. He is surprised that there are large drops of dew everywhere, surprised too that the water is soft and sweet. He sips at several little pools of water and this refreshes him, calms him a little.</p><p>He keeps very still until he certain there is no one around, then creeps back towards the urn. Once more he lifts his head slowly but this time his reflection causes no fear, only endless grief as it offers irrefutable proof that he is a spider.</p><p>Turning handsome man into a huge spider is a spitefully effective method of taking revenge. While Craig may look like a spider, he still has the heart and soul of the man he was.  Like men everywhere, Craig enjoys the company of his friends and family, he likes the structure of his job and the rewards and satisfaction of his work. He loves his two bedroom flat in Wimbledon which he has decorated tastefully and carefully. He likes to have a drink with his mates, he likes to watch telly, he loves to cook, he loves listening to Roxy Music, he enjoys a good book and the paper in bed on Sunday, he likes to peer under the bonnet of his car and tinker with a spanner.</p><p>The loss of all these things, and the fact that he is so repulsive, brings weeny arachnoid tears to Craig’s bright black eyes.</p><p>He recalls Adrian’s flimsy instructions as to how to break the spell. “You’ll have to get a handsome man to kiss you!”</p><p>Craig flattens himself out against the cool earth as he considers this. Who would kiss a spider? What would entice and person – male or female, handsome or ugly – to kiss a spider?</p><p>A big black ugly hairy spider?</p><p>The thought is too overwhelming so he localises it. Would I kiss a spider? And immediately the tears rush over his eyes as he realises that he will almost certainly die in six days.</p><p>Part Three</p><p>Craig spent the next two days scaling a learning curve that was almost vertical.</p><p>The hardest thing was controlling all those legs. Never one to attempt any mission unprepared, Craig practised in the cemetery, learning which legs worked in tandem, which ones could work independently. His four longest legs had five joints each and this allowed him fabulous flexibility in climbing.</p><p>Once he had the legs under control he learnt how to adjust his vision. A tarantula’s eyes are one the top of their head, not at the front, and this is why he could see most clearly sitting still, his head tipped slightly to one side.</p><p>When he was confident that he could walk with grace and find his way, he set off towards homes nearby, thinking that since he could still talk that maybe he could convince someone to help him.</p><p>But where to go? He wondered if he could walk to Swansea, where maybe he could get his father, who had once been a very handsome man, to kiss him and break the spell. </p><p>Craig tried to imagine convincing his burly spider-phobic father to kiss him.</p><p>“Never going to work,” Craig told a passing parade of ants. The ants were busy, preoccupied with their work and paid him no attention. Despite their lack of interest Craig was delighted to learn that all ants do not look the same – each one has a different face, a different expression, tiny little characteristics to tell them apart.</p><p>After the ants had passed Craig refocussed on his plight.</p><p>“Maybe a museum?” he mused as he scaled a large oak tree. He thought of surrendering himself to a museum, charming a handsome curator - then had a clear mental picture of his huge dark body floating in formaldehyde, pinned to a board, dissected and reconstituted with embalming fluid to terrify generations of school children.</p><p>All day, as he made his way along the edge of the town, over the trees, across gutters, along powerlines, close to the edge of fences, through backyards, across parks, the spider pondered his predicament.</p><p>He found no solution. When night came he curled up under some old rotting fence palings he found in a backyard, very hungry, very cold and completely miserable. He cried himself to sleep.</p><p>The next morning he woke with sticky tired eyes and he wondered if he should just stay under the crumbling wood until he died of cold, as Adrian suggested he might.  But while a bad witch can change your body they can’t crush your spirit and Craig’s spirit remained as determined as it had been when he was a man. He would not lay down and die.</p><p>So he drank some more dew and kept travelling, across parks, along trees, close to walls of old houses, his thoughts of restitution gradually overtaken by the need to eat. In the early afternoon he came across a tiny piece of sticky bun in the grass near a library; he gobbled at it pitifully, carefully cleaning every last speck of sweet pastry from his hairy forelegs. </p><p>It restored him temporarily, gave him strength to keep going, through the parks, the trees, the gutters, abandoned factories, all the while trying to work out a way to reverse the spell.</p><p>He was walking through a drainpipe along an old bus depot when the horrible truth finally sank in: there is no way. No one will kiss me.</p><p>By late afternoon Craig was not only depressed but weakening with hunger. He had seen a few flies in his travels but the thought of catching one, let alone eating one, made him bilious. He gagged when he got close enough to experience their ugly plasticine faces, their queer opalescent eyes, their sticky gaping mouths and their horrendous body odour.</p><p>“Maybe I’ll die of hunger before the seven days is up,” he sighed as he turned down a long dark alley. He had just assessed the objects in the lane when a powerful rich aroma swamped him, almost drawing him physically through the lane.</p><p>Pizza!</p><p>There were two flat white cardboard boxes laying beside two bins maybe thirty feet from him.  The delicious scent made him scuttle, his movement driven by nothing except the thought of food.</p><p>He was only a few feet away when a huge black shape swished over him and grazed his back. Instinctively he dived under the first available shelter – a large piece of damp cardboard – and peeped out to see if he was in danger.</p><p>A large black face with with two mean-spirited eyes and a horrifying sharp gold beak peeped right back.</p><p>“Oh yuck,” Craig whispered. “A crow!”</p><p>The hungry patient old bird waited nearly two hours for Craig, occasionally pecking at the cardboard, hopping right over the surface in an attempt to dislodge the large meaty spider. At one stage she even tugged at the cardboard with her powerful beak but mercifully it was too heavy for her to shift. Night was falling when she flew back to her nest with an empty beak, but Craig was too frightened to move for another hour.</p><p>It was dark when he crept nervously towards the flat boxes. The aroma that drifted towards him was almost as good as the food itself.</p><p>As he chewed ravenously at the cold scraps of stale pizza,  Craig wondered how many more things would try to eat him over the next five days.</p><p>He found out just forty minutes later when he sauntered, full of cheese and dough and decaying pepperoni, through the old factory at the end of the lane.</p><p>A handsome young male rat, dining dispiritedly on a dead pigeon, spied Craig lumbering across the rotting wooden floor. Craig, looking for somewhere nice sleep, was absorbed in the discovery of his night vision and the understanding of having eyes on the top of his head. He walks in a  straight line in the dark but is able to see quite clearly the ceiling high above him.</p><p>“I’m a gifted spider,” he tells himself happily. The gifted spider almost doesn’t see the greedy rat until it is too late; the rodent runs into Craig’s visual range quickly and gives him a start.</p><p>“UGH!” Craig says out loud. “ UGH! How disgusting! A filthy rat!”</p><p>He waves his long front legs and flexes his fangs but the rat is entirely unimpressed, concerned only with eating something fresh, warm and substantial.</p><p>But this time the tired spider is more aggravated than frightened and when the rat lunges forward Craig bites him very sharply on the snout.</p><p>“Fixed you, you filthy disease-carrying creep!” Craig sings out as he runs away. Self preservation blots his weariness and Craig decides he would be safer sleeping where there are no rats; he wanders almost a half a mile and finds a nice dry corner near a perfectly respectable block of flats.</p><p>He is sound asleep before he has curled all his legs around him.</p><p>Part Four</p><p>Dance away the heartache<br/>Dance away…</p><p>The familiar music wakes Craig gently; the sound of his favourite song brings a sweet little smile to his tiny face.</p><p>“Roxy Music!” For a moment he has almost forgotten that he is a spider, but the beautiful luminous dew drops all around him quickly remind him where and what he is, and that he is very thirsty.</p><p>He drinks and sways as the music drifts down the flats but his happiness is shortlived. Soon the song makes him lonely, desperate for some human interaction, reminds him of his own life and the little pleasures he took for granted every day.</p><p>But Craig has already shown that he a not a spider to be bogged down by misery. He looks up as far as he can and sees there are six flats over three floors. The music is coming from one of them. Not a steep climb, and it will bring the added bonus of some much needed warmth from the sun that streams down over the bricks.</p><p>Craig is almost sprightly as he starts his ascent. He feels the music pulsing through the bricks and if you saw him you might be convinced he was skipping. You would certainly hear him chattering to himself.</p><p>I can go in live in a vent and at least hear good music every day until I die.</p><p>I can eat crumbs and leftovers in the kitchen when they’ve gone to bed.</p><p>I can drink water from the sink while they’re at work.</p><p>The owner might be handsome! And male! And might be persuaded to kiss me!</p><p>And if nothing else, a Roxy Music fan wouldn’t squash me.</p><p>Thus Craig coaxes himself up the edge of the building.</p><p>The first flat on the ground floor is owned  and occupied by a mechanic. He is shaving when Craig peers over the bathroom ledge. Craig finds the mechanic very attractive but he knows the chances of eliciting a kiss from him would be non-existent. In any case the music isn’t coming from there. </p><p>So he has a look next door where he finds an elderly lady in a very pretty dressing gown feeding her cat, listening to Radio One, not Roxy Music. “I’d give her a heart attack”, Craig decides quickly and makes his way to the next floor.</p><p>Here he finds a single mum preparing breakfast for two primary school aged children.  The television blares in the background, not music. Craig knows he stands no chance here and moves on.</p><p>Next door a young married couple is locked in the throes of passion when Craig looks through their window.  They have not wasted their time playing any music.</p><p>“Not a hope,” Craig says resignedly and continues his way up the wall, making his way to a window box at the flat upstairs.</p><p>Constable Luke Ashton is making toast in his small kitchen; he wears a tshirt and a pair of boxers as he dances to Roxy Music’s Greatest Hits. Craig can hear the music clearly as he creeps into the window box. He sees the young man and his tiny heart quickens, for a moment he is still and flat, his eyes fixed on Luke dancing as he drinks his coffee, scoffs a bit of toast, rinses his plate.</p><p>“Aren’t you something,” the spider whispers.</p><p>Craig carefully moves around the tiny balsam plants, his eyes fixed on Luke.  Gradually his body absorbs the music through the planter and he dances in time with him on his eight legs.</p><p>When the song stops the spider sighs.</p><p>Luke gathers the scraps of his toast – he never eats the crusts – and takes them to the window sill, his hand inches from the large black spider. Craig flattens himself out against the dark soil of the planter and watches as Luke neatly places the crumbs on the sill.</p><p>“Breakfast, guys!” Luke calls cheerfully to no one in particular, but as soon as he turns around three fat little sparrow hens, who have been waiting in a nearby tree, swoop down to their reliable food source.</p><p>That was the clincher. A man who feeds sparrows wouldn’t hurt a spider, Craig reasons. A man who feeds sparrows and likes Roxy music might well like spiders.</p><p>And he is so handsome!</p><p>When Luke makes his way to the shower Craig slips in past the sparrows and in under the window.</p><p>Across the creamy plastic counter top, where he stopped briefly to assist with cleaning up the toast crumbs. </p><p>Up the cupboards.</p><p>Along the wall to the vent.</p><p>Along the inside of the wall, around to the next vent where he can hear showering. The steam and warmth is invigorating for the large spider who, although he doesn’t realise it, needs external moisture to stay fit and healthy. However, Craig’s thoughts are entirely elsewhere as he watches the damp Ashton reaching for a towel.</p><p>Craig watches him leave the room then hurries along the interior wall to the bedroom.</p><p>He sees Luke toss the towel on the bed and dress carefully. Clean white polo shirt, clean jeans, smart costly trainers.</p><p>Love your style, the spider smiles to himself as he watches Luke check himself in the mirror. What is he?  A clerk? IT maybe? Not an office, not in jeans and an open necked shirt.</p><p>Young Constable Ashton is standing just a few feet from the enormous spider when he straps his watch to his wrist.</p><p>“Shit!” he cries, for he’s due at parade in less than thirty minutes. He grabs his dark duffle bag and rushes out the door, leaving the CD to play right through.</p><p>And the bedroom is still, curiously lifeless. If you were there and looked around the room you’d just see bland furniture and four white walls, but then Craig’s thick dark shape appears, black and stealthy, first the front two legs, then another and another, his nightmarish shape gradually blooming against the white vent like a vast black rose.  </p><p>“Nice digs!” Craig says cheerfully as he inches down the wall.</p><p>He tiptoes daintily across the chest of drawers, over Luke’s small pile of loose change, right over top of a half empty bottle of Eau Savage and surveys the unmade bed.</p><p>The warmth and scent of the damp towel attracts him and without thinking the huge spider jumps nearly five feet.</p><p>“Didn’t know I could that!” Craig grins as he lands on the towel.</p><p>It is heavenly, soft and white, warm and damp, rich with the scent of a healthy young man.</p><p>Craig sighs as he makes his way under the towel. “So good.” </p><p>So good, in fact, the spider curls up in the comforting dampness and drifts into a deep sleep.</p><p>Part Five</p><p>Everyday Luke leaves for work in a good mood, determined to make his mark on the job, determined to prove to himself that he is capable, determined to win the respect of his peers.</p><p>Everyday he comes home from work deflated and miserable, convinced he will never be even an adequate police officer, let alone a good one.</p><p>Usually he dumps his bag hard on the floor when he gets home but today he drops it softly on his shabby old sofa, the one his mother gave him when he flew the nest. Had he had dumped it on the floor the noise and vibration would have woken Craig and this story might have had a very different ending.</p><p>But Craig still snores, tiny pleasant spider snoring, as Luke enters the bedroom and flicks on the light. The sad young policeman sits heavily on his unmade bed and rests his face in his hand.</p><p>“Oh God I am useless,” he says to himself with abject misery.</p><p>Craig wakes up suddenly when he feels the movement on the bed. “Crumbs,” the spider whispers to himself. “Oh, crumbs.” He lays very still under the now dry towel.</p><p>Luke lifts his face – does he hear the voice, maybe?  - and looks around the untidy room. He shrugs his shoulders and almost mechanically starts to tidy up.</p><p>He straightens the pillow and pulls the duvet up to the head of the bed.</p><p>He fluffs the pillows a little.</p><p>He picks up some socks from the floor.</p><p>He is just about to leave the room when he sees his towel on the bed.</p><p>He leans over and picks it up by the  -</p><p>“OH MY GOD!” Luke yells at the top of his voice when he sees the giant South American tarantula on his duvet. “Oh, Jesus Christ!”</p><p>Craig has his front legs in the air,  struggling on the soft uneven surface of the duvet, pleading as he sees Luke reach for the first heavy object to which he can lay his hand. It happens to be a copy of The Constable’s Handbook, tossed amongst the debris on Luke’s chest of drawers and a very lethal 280 pages thick.</p><p>“Don’t kill me!” Craig begs, his legs all over the place. “Don’t kill me, please don’t kill me! I’m not a spider! I’m a man! Someone put a curse on me and turned me into a spider. Please! Please!”</p><p>To be confronted with a giant spider is terrifying enough. To be addressed (albeit in a rather attractive deep voice) by a giant spider is horror itself.</p><p>Luke holds the heavy book mid air. He is having a bit of difficulty in processing this.</p><p>“Sorry?” he says after a few seconds.</p><p>“Don’t kill me, I’m actually a man, I’m not a spider at all, someone put a curse on” – and then Craig sees exactly what Luke is going to use to kill him. He is not impressed. His fangs lift and pinch slightly, his voice becomes authoritative.</p><p>“Are you planning on killing me with a copy of the Constables’ Handbook?”</p><p>Luke does not change his position but lifts his eyes warily to check the name of the book. He turns his eyes back to the fearsome shape, his face bathed in guilt.</p><p>“That book is the property of the Met. Are you a constable?”</p><p>“Yes. Yes I am.” Luke still has not moved.</p><p>“You were given that book to assist you to in undertaking your career ethically and with professionalism, not to kill things. Especially not spiders.” Craig straightens himself as effectively as he can. He feels ungainly but if he knew how he intimidating he looked he would puff with pride.</p><p>Luke lowers the book very slowly.</p><p>“How come you can read?”</p><p>“I’m not a spider,” Craig answers.</p><p>Luke nods slowly like a man convinced of one thing when he knows he should believe another.</p><p>“Oh, yes you are. You’re a very large black, hairy, ugly spider.”</p><p>Craig’s leg flatten a little, he seems to sink into the bed. It hurts to be called ugly.</p><p>“I was a man. My partner put a spell on me.”</p><p>Luke relaxes his arms, interested despite himself.</p><p>“Why? Whaddya do to her?”</p><p>“Him. My partner – my ex-partner – was a man. I wanted to break up.”<br/>Luke stares so Craig feels obliged to add more information.</p><p> I wasn’t happy. He was – he was different to me.”</p><p>“You’re a gay spider?” Luke asks this very quickly.</p><p>“I’m a gay man,” Craig corrects him.</p><p>Luke has dozens of questions but no idea how to ask them. He starts with the easy things.</p><p>“Why were you leaving him? Because he turned you into things?”</p><p>“I didn’t know he could turn me into things, or obviously I would have gone about the break-up in a different way. No, I wanted to break up because – well, I wasn’t happy. We were different.”</p><p>“You can say that again,” Luke says. “Did he always turn you into things?”</p><p>“No,” Craig says softly. “Just this time, when I tried to leave him.”</p><p>“Maybe he turned you into things when you were asleep,” Luke suggests.</p><p>Craig’s confused. “What?”</p><p>“Well, if he could turn you into things, maybe he turned you in snakes and spiders and things when you were asleep.” Luke tilts his shoulders, a little embarrassed, conscious that he is perhaps not being as sensible as he should yet unable to let go of this interesting train of thought. “Like a newt. Then turned you back before you woke up.”</p><p>Craig is more confused. “What?”</p><p>“Well, wouldn’t you turn people into things if you could? Then turn then back before they found out and got ticked off?”</p><p>“No! I certainly would not.” Craig can see that book is completely lowered now. He senses Luke is not going to hurt him but instead is moving very carefully, very slowly, towards the bed.</p><p>“Can he turn you back?”</p><p>“It wasn’t quite like that.” Craig gently explains what he needs to reverse the spell. Luke is sympathetic .</p><p>“Oh. Oh. How will you find … I mean, no one in their right mind…”</p><p>“No,” Craig says quickly. “I know.” He moves over slightly. “Unless….”</p><p>“NO WAY!” Luke lifts his book again. “No way on earth am I kissing a frigging spider! I don’t care if you turn into a prince and give me a castle, no way am I going to kiss you.”</p><p>“Okay, okay,” Craig uses his smooth negotiating voice. “I didn’t expect you to. Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. You’ve been really good, I appreciate you listening to me.”</p><p>The young constable stands quiet, thinking, bringing his book down to his side once more.</p><p>“Are you still going to squash me?”</p><p>Luke isn’t sure. “Well, not on my bed.”</p><p>“And not with the Constable’s Handbook, either, I would hope.”</p><p>“How do you know about the Constable’s Handbook? Are you a police spider?”</p><p>Craig’s voice is stern and commands respect. “I’m a police sergeant.”</p><p>Luke digests this, thinks it over, then his eyes brighten with a naughty glimmer.</p><p>“Show me your warrant card!”</p><p> </p><p>Part Six</p><p>Magic is a popular theme in fairy stories and the cabaret circuit but unfortunately there is precious little magic in our dreary everyday lives. </p><p>The course of world history could be quite different if, say, dictators were visited by a friendly unicorn before they decided to slaughter villages of people in their quest for power. Think of how many wars could have been averted, how much misery could have avoided, if governments and monarchies could have taken counsel from fairies and goblins.</p><p>On a smaller scale, people might be prepared to try a little harder, give something tiresome one last try, if only they could spill their hearts, and in turn be encouraged and supported, by a  secret magical friend. A friend who couldn’t tell anyone what they heard, a friend who didn’t judge them.</p><p>Luke has been sitting on the floor, leaning against his bed, talking to a massive black tarantula who is perched on the Constable’s Handbook. Luke and his secret friend have been in discussion for almost two hours. They have discussed Craig’s interesting and distressing plight, his work, the awful Adrian, his flat which he misses so badly, his snappy little Citroen and the blokes at work with whom Craig plays rugby in social matches on the weekend.</p><p>Then they talked about Luke’s little flat, his work, his time at Hendon, the gym where Luke works out three times a week, Roxy Music, the local farmer’s market and Luke’s short term financial plan (he is saving for a new car).</p><p>Craig, lonely and frightened for so long, is really enjoying the young constable’s company. Luke finds Craig offers good advice. (At one stage Luke, listening carefully to how Craig scrimped and saved to put a deposit on his flat, smiled and interrupted. “You’re very grown up for a spider.”  And when the long thick front legs started waving, Luke cut in quickly. “I know, I know. You’re really a man.”)</p><p>Currently Luke is complaining about work and his inability to ever win praise from his impatient and belligerent supervising officer.</p><p>“You have to look at it from his point of view,” Craig tells him after Luke has moaned for almost ten minutes about Sergeant Prescott, the bane of his existence.</p><p>“I do,” Luke protests, “I know he has to make it hard for me, to be strict”-</p><p>“That’s not what I mean,” the wise spider answers. “Prescott is accountable for you. He’s accountable for your safety as well as your work. If anything happened to you when you went on those raids, or tried to get those people out of that fire, Prescott, and Prescott alone, would have to answer for that.” Craig waits for Luke to assess this. “That’s why he gets so angry at you. He might be thrilled with your bravery but that doesn’t mean he wants to take responsibility for it if you get hurt or worse.”</p><p>Luke sneers a little. “It wouldn’t hurt him to congratulate me though. I mean, I saved that woman from that factory fire I told you about.”</p><p>“You’re not listening!” Craig waves his front legs sternly. “He can’t praise you secretly then rebuke you publicly. You put yourself at risk and he has to be certain that you won’t think that kind of risk is secretly the right thing to do. Of course he gave you a bullocking. Now if you’re smart you’ll do the right thing and obey the orders he gives you in future.”</p><p>Luke has forgotten he is talking to a spider and now speaks with Craig as comfortably as he would with mates down the pub.</p><p>“I just want to get on with him,” Luke sighs.</p><p>“Then do as he tells you. No, don’t argue, listen to me. I’ve been a sergeant for four years now and I promise you that all you have to do is follow the orders he gives you. Just try it for a week. See what happens. You might be pleasantly surprised.”</p><p>Luke rests his head back on the bed.</p><p>“Just for a week,” Craig says again.</p><p>“Okay.” And then Luke sits up, curious about something else. “Where are your eyes?”</p><p>“On the top of my head. Can you see them?”</p><p>Luke leans down carefully. Craig watches the beautiful young face as it comes into clear and full view, the skin bright and clear, the soft fat tongue resting on the bottom lip as Luke looks over the three segments of Craig’s body. “Nope. Can you blink at me and give me a clue?”</p><p>“I don’t think I have any eyelids”, Craig answers.</p><p>“Have you got ears?”</p><p>Craig lifts the second, and the longest, leg on his left side. “They’re around here, beneath my eyes.”</p><p>Luke moves carefully to get a better look but just sees a hairy spider.  “Can’t see a thing. Are you, um, poisonous?”</p><p>Craig hasn’t thought about this. “No idea. I only worked out how to use my fangs last night.”</p><p>Luke’s eyes grow wide. “Did you bite someone?”</p><p>“A rat tried to eat me.” Craig shudders.</p><p>“Oh, yuck!” Luke is very impressed. “Did he catch you?”</p><p>Craig explains what was nearly the end of him.</p><p>“Cool!”</p><p>“It wasn’t at the time.” Craig shuffles his legs a little and moves a tiny inch closer.<br/>“So do you still  want to kill me?”</p><p>It seems the most horrendous thought now. “No! No, I couldn’t. Even if you were just a spider I couldn’t kill you, not really. I was just hoping you’d run away before.” Luke smiles, a gentle peace offering of a smile. “You’re pretty good value, even if you do scare the shit out of me every time you move.”</p><p>“I won’t hurt you,” Craig promises. “And I don’t mean to scare you.”</p><p>“You’re just really big. What kind are you?”</p><p>“Can’t tell. I’ve only seen myself once and I was so horrible I ran away.”</p><p>Luke laughs. “See? You scare yourself!” Luke leans back against the bed, stretches his tired back and idly scratches his head. “Well, I’m starving. I’m going  to make some dinner.” He lifts himself up from the floor and stops, half crouching, to grin at Craig. “ What about you? Want me to catch you some flies?”</p><p> </p><p>Part Seven</p><p> </p><p>After several promises of no biting, no moving, no jumping and definitely, absolutely no biting, Luke carefully carried Craig – sitting very still on the Constable’s Handbook – to the kitchen.</p><p>Craig sat on the window sill over the sink and they discussed low carbohydrate diets while Luke stir-fried chicken and green vegetables.</p><p>“Sometimes I think I should try it,” Craig tells him, “but I just love pasta and bread so much. And I couldn’t stop eating porridge. Or fruit.”</p><p>“Do you think flies are high carb?” Luke smirks as he tosses in a little sesame oil into his large hissing pan.</p><p>“They’re disgusting,” Craig says, and unfortunately Luke can’t see the contorted spider face. “They have the most awful faces – like big melted monster masks – and they stink.”</p><p>“Really?” Luke screws up his fine nose. “Did you get to see other insects?”</p><p>“Well, I didn’t make any friends, but I saw a moth up close.”</p><p>“Did you eat him?” Luke carefully lowers the flame on the cooktop; the food is nearly ready.</p><p>“No! I keep telling you…”</p><p>“I know, I know, you’re not a spider. You just look like one. So what did you do to him?”</p><p>“The moth? Nothing. I just looked at him. He was really cute, actually. They have little pixie faces! But they’re not too smart.”</p><p>“How did you know it was a boy moth?”</p><p>“I just did,” Craig said smugly. “I have a boy radar.”</p><p>“Is that why you came to my flat?”  Luke carefully spoons the food onto a large clean white plate. He saves a thumb size piece of chicken and a sprig of broccoli at the side of the pan.</p><p>“No, I came for the music!”</p><p>“Oh yeah! You told me. Do you want a plate, or maybe just put it over there…I dunno, never fed a spider before.”</p><p>“A plate would be good. I’ve missed having a plate.”</p><p>Luke looks through his little cupboard and finds a small chintzy plate covered in yellow roses. He arranges the chicken and broccoli at the centre and sets it down for Craig on the bench.</p><p>“Nothing personal, but I don’t think I could eat with a giant spider,” Luke says in soft, shamed voice as he moves to the table.</p><p>“I understand.” Craig is so hungry he doesn’t care. But halfway through his meal Luke stands up and carries the little chintzy plate over to the table to sit with him.</p><p>They talk about cooking and crockery and the taste of dew very early in the morning.</p><p>Later that evening, after the washing up is done, Luke makes a cup of coffee and takes Craig, sitting very quietly in a large salad bowl, over to his computer to check the Internet.</p><p>Luke tries lots of different keywords and searches lots of different websites but finds no pictures of spiders who look like Craig.</p><p>“We need to know your species,” Luke decides. Craig is reading Luke’s list of favourite sites down the side of the screen. He recognises a lot of those sites.<br/>“I’ll try and call in to the library on the way home and see if I can get a spider book.”</p><p>Craig lifts his sweet little fuzzy head. “So you’re okay if I stay here?”</p><p>“Yeah! I’m fine with it. As long as I don’t have to touch you.”</p><p>“Not expecting any visitors, no girlfriend who’d tried and stab me with her stilettos?” Craig is asking one question and expecting an answer to another.</p><p>Luke quickly logs out and snaps the monitor off. “No. I’m single. Don’t have a girlfriend.” And he changes the subject, wondering if he might have shoebox or other suitable container that could serve as a spider’s bed.  </p><p>Luke fossicks around in the bottom of his linen cupboard where he keeps papers, old magazines and boxes that might come in handy some day.</p><p>“Perfect!” he beams at Craig. It is the box that held his police boots when he was first issued with his uniform. Luke lines the box carefully with an old sweatshirt. </p><p>There is much animated discussion about where to put the box once Craig has climbed in. Luke wants to put him in a cupboard; Craig, slightly claustrophobic when he is a man, pleads for a bit of open space. </p><p>In the end Luke tucks the box in the corner of his bedroom and issues a critical warning.</p><p>“Before I turn off the light I want you to know that I definitely will squash you if you come anywhere near me while I’m sleeping.”</p><p>“I understand.” Craig settles in to his nicely appointed little box. He waits until the light is off and Luke is in his bed.</p><p>“Luke?” Craig calls out from his corner.</p><p>A sleepy closed-eye voice answers. “What.”</p><p>“Can I have a kiss goodnight?”</p><p>Luke snuffles noisily under his sheets. “Not on your life.”</p><p>“Okay, Craig says nicely. “Goodnight.” And the happy spider creeps under the fabric of the sweatshirt where it’s warm and dark. He curls his monstrous legs around him and smiles to himself. Only a matter of time, he thinks as sleep rushes over him in one sweet wave. </p><p>Part Eight</p><p>As soon as the early morning eased slowly through the small pale room, Craig clambered out of his little box and crept over to the bed, over the duvet, right up to one of Luke’s pillows.</p><p>He sat and stared at the sleeping form for a few seconds before he took a deep breath and waved his ferocious legs.</p><p>“Constable Ashton! You’re due on parade in forty minutes!”</p><p>Luke sat bolt upright, his eyes wide and unclear, searching the room for the sound of the voice.</p><p>“Come on! Move! Get in the shower!”</p><p>Luke looked down on the pillow beside him and leapt out of bed, furious, but before he could protest Craig was on his case.</p><p>“You want to get on with your Sergeant? Get to work ten minutes early.”</p><p>“I want to get some sleep too! Your supposed to stay in your box! Did you walk on me?” Luke is suddenly covered with thousands of invisible spiders and in his sleepy stupor tries to brush them from his skin. “Ugh! Did you walk on me while I was asleep? You said…”</p><p>“I didn’t touch you,” Craig replies coolly from the pillow, straining to get a better look. “Promise. I just thought I could help you with the job. Now what shift are you on today?”</p><p>“Area car,” Luke grumbles as he tries to cover himself with his duvet.</p><p>“Good. You can get to work early and clean out the car before you attend parade. Now have a shower like a good boy and I’ll catch you some nice fresh flies for breakfast.”</p><p> </p><p>Craig is already waiting on the kitchen bench near the toaster when Luke reappears, pristine underwear and short hair standing in soft shiny wet spikes around his head. The spider smiles broadly when he sees him.</p><p>“You didn’t really catch me any flies, did you?” Luke asks warily.</p><p>“No. Actually I’m hoping that toast’s on the menu again.”</p><p>“You’ll be lucky to get anything at all,” Luke snaps. “I’ve got a good mind to feed you to the birds.”</p><p>But instead he toasts a chubby little crust and covers it with peanut butter. Craig eats calmly now, his big spidery belly still satisfied from last night’s chicken.</p><p>When he’s finished Luke calls the sparrows over for their crusts.<br/>“There’s a big fat spider over there too, if you want him.”</p><p>                         ****************</p><p>Luke is at the station a full fifteen minutes early and renders the area car spotless before parade. When cranky Sergeant Prescott radios through to Luke during the day the young constable is polite and obedient.</p><p>And before Luke leaves for the day, Prescott, the master of monosyllabic grunting, congratulates Luke for a productive day.</p><p>“Good work today Ashton,” the Sergeant growls as Luke passes him in the corridor.</p><p>“Thanks Sarge!” Luke calls after him.</p><p> </p><p>                       ********************************</p><p>“That’s the nicest thing he’s ever said to me!” Luke grins at the spider through a mouthful of takeaway curry that night.</p><p>“Told you!” Craig says, just as happy, tucking into a spider-sized serving of samosa pieces and naan. He’s missed the young man and is relishing the company. “Bit of respect goes along way.”</p><p>After dinner Craig hops into the large salad bowl and they retire to the tiny adjoining room where Luke keeps his stereo and cds. They have important research to do tonight; Luke has been to the library and has borrowed a very large book.</p><p>“Okay!” Luke says efficiently as he lies down on the floor and obligingly eases the bowl slowly so Craig can get out. “Let’s find out what you are.”</p><p>He turns the pages of the giant book carefully.</p><p>“Can you lean it forward a bit? I can’t quite see,” Craig asks.</p><p>“How’s that?”</p><p>Craig tips his dear little black head to one side. “That’s better. That one! There! Does that look like me?”</p><p>“Colombian Red Rump,” Luke reads slowly. “Nope.”</p><p>Craig is secretly disappointed for the Colombian Red Rump is very attractive, all rusty fluffy limbs and a round ochre bottom.</p><p>“Chilean Rose,” Luke says as they turn the page and find a beautiful carmine tarantula with pink limbs.</p><p>“I know I’m not pink.”</p><p>“No, not pink. Blue.”</p><p>“Blue? I’m black!”</p><p>“Nah–ah,” Luke answers melodically. “You look black, but in the light, well, in a certain light, you’ve got a blue sheen.”</p><p>“Have I?” Craig is fascinated.</p><p>“Yeah! Not like this ugly bastard.” Luke points to a picture of a Texan Tan.</p><p>Side by side and absorbed, the two friends examine the glorious global spectrum of tarantulas.</p><p>“They’re all pretty horrible looking,” Craig decides after they have studied coloured plates of thirty massive spiders. “Maybe I’m not in there.”</p><p>Luke folds the book closed and shows Craig the cover.</p><p>“It’s called the Complete Book of Tarantulas.” Luke is confident and firm. “You’re in here somewhere.”</p><p> </p><p>Part Nine</p><p>Page 41 has the information they seek.</p><p>“That’s you!” Luke points excitedly to a large, clear close up of an enormous blue-black fellow sitting placidly on the trunk a tree.</p><p>“Where?” Craig creeps a little closer to the page. “Oh! It is blue! What does it say?”</p><p>Luke studies the text. “Pamphobeteus Antinous,” he says carefully.</p><p>“Pamphobi – say it again?”</p><p>But it’s too hard to say again. “Bolivian Blue Leg!”</p><p>“Bolivian? Wouldn’t I be Welsh?”</p><p>“Are you Welsh? I thought heard the accent but it’s not very strong. Do you have tarantulas in Wales?”</p><p>“Maybe, boyo.”</p><p>Luke reads a little more.</p><p>“You’re actually from Peru!”</p><p>“I’m definitely from Swansea.” For a moment the spider remembers his family and gets a little wistful, but Luke is becoming enthusiastic as he reads more about Craig’s peculiar habits.</p><p>“Says here you can’t climb! Fat lot they know.”</p><p>“I’m an excellent climber.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, it says here you can’t because falls are dangerous for you. You’re a heavy spider and you split if hit the ground hard.”</p><p>“Well, I haven’t fallen yet and I’ve been climbing everything. Am I poisonous?”</p><p>Luke runs his finger down the page. Craig watches his strong hand and feels a slight pang. He wishes he could climb on to Luke, touch his skin.</p><p>“No, but you give a mean bite!  And apparently you’re a terrestrial spider. You can make webs but you like to live on the ground.” Luke looks over to Craig with renewed interest. “According to this I could keep you in a tank and feed you mice.”</p><p>“You’re too scared to touch me,” the Bolivian Blue snorts, belying his feelings.</p><p>“Apparently you’re pretty timid!” Luke is delighted. “How gay is that!”</p><p>“You were pretty timid too when you first saw me,” Craig reminds him. Does it say anything else?” He inches over to the page, a little closer to Luke. “Hey! My legs can grow back!”</p><p>“Where’s it say that?” Luke reads a little further. “Oh, they do too – no, hang on, it says here that adult males can’t. “</p><p>“Bugger,” Craig says softly. “What else?”</p><p>“Apparently you don’t like being handled,” Luke reads slowly.</p><p>Craig’s little pinhead eyes grow bright. “You can handle me.”</p><p>“No way! Anyway, you might urticate on me.”</p><p>“I might what on you?” Craig is indignant.</p><p>“Shed itchy little hairs all over me! Yuk!” Luke is covered with the invisible spiders again.</p><p>“Can I do that?”</p><p>“Says here you can. Says here you eat birds too.”</p><p>Craig thinks about the crow that waited so patiently to eat him alive.</p><p>“There’s some birds I’d like to eat,” he agrees.</p><p>“Don’t you touch my sparrows,” Luke warns.</p><p>“What else can I do?”</p><p>Luke reads the paragraph on moulting. “Every couple of months you renew yourself! You roll over on your back and shed your whole exoskeleton! It’s a very stressful time for you and you should be left alone when you’re moulting.”</p><p>“Well, that something to look forward to,” Craig says quietly. “If I get to do it.”</p><p>But Luke doesn’t answer. He knows Craig only has a few days but – just as he did when Craig explained his problem the first night they met – he changes the subject.</p><p>“I want to get bed soon,” he tells Craig. “It was good getting to work early this morning. I want to impress Prescott again tomorrow morning. You tired?”</p><p>Craig has spent the day snoozing in the sun on the window ledge, wandering through the bathroom and sipping small Luke-tasting puddles in the shower recess and wandering in and out of vents. He doesn’t feel especially tired but he wants to stay with Luke and is delighted when Luke holds the bowl over to him.</p><p>“Come on Bolivian Blue, let’s get an early night.”</p><p>                            0000000000000000000000</p><p> </p><p>He settles the large spider gently into his box, waiting patiently for Craig to manoeuvre his long thick legs over the bowl and onto the padded surface.</p><p>“Maybe I should get you some leaves and branches? Would you like that?”</p><p>“I’d prefer a television and a lap pool,” Craig answers, struggling to get a grip.</p><p>Luke laughs gently. “So gay! Do you like other spiders? I mean, boy spiders?”</p><p>“I haven’t met the right one.”</p><p>Luke almost answers, “I think I have,” but bites his tongue.</p><p>Tonight Luke moves the box to his bedside table so they can chat before they fall asleep. Craig asks more about work today and Luke asks about Craig’s friends.</p><p>“You’re lucky to have so many good mates,” Luke says sleepily.</p><p>“They’d all be wondering where I am,” Craig answers sadly.</p><p>Luke disregards this. “Tomorrow night – can I talk to you about something tomorrow night?”</p><p>Craig lifts his head and peers over the edge of his box. He can see Luke in the dark, the magnificent fresh sheen of his skin sparkling in the dark room. “Talk to me about it now.”</p><p>“Too tired,” Luke says briefly. “Tomorrow night, yeah?”</p><p>“Tomorrow night then. Good night.”</p><p>“Good night, Bolivian Blue.” Luke stretches and rolls over, almost asleep. “And no, I’m not going to kiss you.”</p><p> </p><p>Part Ten</p><p>In the morning Luke wakes first, filled with self-righteous pleasure as he remembers he will be at work early again.</p><p>He catches sight of the box and gently lifts the old sweatshirt under which Craig has burrowed.  As he watches the soundly sleeping spider Luke has a splendid idea.</p><p>“WAKE UP BOLIVIAN BLUE!” he yells into the box.</p><p>Craig springs up with his limbs extended like a boxer, his fangs moving like scissors but Luke is half way to the bathroom before Craig starts cursing.</p><p>Craig has the last laugh when it’s time for breakfast.</p><p>“Where are you?” Luke calls around the kitchen. “Oh, come on, I was havin’ a laugh. Where are you?”</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>“You’ll miss breakfast,” Luke says to the empty room.</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>“What, you hidin’ in the vent? Stop being such a baby and come and have something to eat. I’m making toast and coffee,” and he reaches for the coffee jar.</p><p>“Piece of toast would be fine thanks,” says a deep voice from black lid of the coffee jar and Luke jumps at least six inches from the floor.</p><p>So honour was restored.</p><p>“I’ll be home a little later because I’m going to the gym after work. We’ll continue this issue when I come home,” Luke promises as he leaves.</p><p> </p><p>Craig has another interesting day. He walks through vents all morning, fascinated that he can flatten his body to almost wafer-thinness to slip in and out of the small gaps.</p><p>When he has tired of this fascination he tries jumping from the vent to Luke’s cupboard.</p><p>“Easy!” he smiles when he lands with a slightly graceless thud on the Constable’s Handbook. Always fond of a challenge, Craig climbs back up to the vent and aims for the bed.</p><p>He sails through the air as if suspended by a parachute, lands neatly and softly on the soft duvet.</p><p>“Magic!” It isn’t until he moves that he realises he has released a thread of web. He gathers it up with the tips of his legs and to his joy finds that instinctively he can weave it into a symmetrical design. </p><p>Night vision, ability to flatten himself, long jump and web building skills. Once more Craig appreciates how special he is.</p><p>“I’m a gifted spider!” he sings happily as he knits a thick lacy strip over the corner of the bed.  He’s thrilled with his new talent and looks forward to showing it to Luke tonight.</p><p>                                            000000000000000000000</p><p>Luke’s day isn’t filled with the same level of delightful self-discovery but he continues to follow Craig’s advice and consequently continues to win the grudging approval from grumbling Prescott.</p><p>And at the gym, Luke works himself into a sopping lather, not only at the weight machine but at the sight of Perry, the handsome, blonde fitness instructor who has been flirting with Luke for weeks.</p><p>Life is suddenly so good! The young constable looks forward to seeing Craig tonight.</p><p>                                          000000000000000000000000</p><p>Luke is in a fabulous mood when he comes home, even when he walks into the web Craig as spun across the threshold for him.</p><p>“Gotcha!” the spider sniggers from the wall nearby.</p><p>When Luke has scraped most of the sticky silk from his face he sees the full extent of Craig’s web activity.</p><p>“Is there any part of the flat you haven’t decorated?” Luke asks he examines the many examples of Craig’s skill draped throughout his home.</p><p>“The fridge is clean,” Craig tells him.</p><p>It sets the tone for a night of fun of games. After dinner Luke puts on some music and dances as he washes up while Craig dances on the edge of the sink. You might think a dancing spider would look ridiculous. You’re right but Luke has not been so entertained for months.</p><p>“You’re a great dancer!” Luke says gleefully as Craig catches every beat of The Cure’s Love Cats.</p><p>“Not really,” he pants in between steps, “but it’s easier when you’ve got a lot of legs.”</p><p>Luke splashes him with a few drops of water and Craig, laughing and waving his legs, rushes straight for him. Luke screams happily as he grabs a freshly washed black takeaway container and drops it over the massive spider.</p><p>It grows very quiet. With great precision Luke slips the black plastic lid under the container and lifts it from the counter.</p><p>“Gotcha!” Luke says softly.</p><p>There’s no answer.</p><p>Luke slowly peeks in the container but can see nothing. Gradually he lifts the lid away and to his horror sees the container is empty.</p><p>“Yoo hoo,” a deep voice says from the lid, and Luke sees he has the spider in his left hand, just a thin plate of plastic separating them.</p><p>“Oh Christ!” Luke squeals as he tosses the lid on the counter.</p><p>He is bright eyed, skin flushed as he leans over the spider, as close as he has been to the Bolivian Blue Leg, to share the joke. But Craig is completely still.</p><p>“You okay?”</p><p>Craig is silent, facing away from Luke, motionless.</p><p>“Craig?”</p><p>The spider seems dead. Luke’s heart starts to thump and he leans over further.</p><p>“Are you okay?”</p><p>Craig imperceptibly tilts his fuzzy little spider bottom and sends a skein of web all over Luke’s face.</p><p>“Gotcha!” the spider roars. Luke laughed until his ribs hurt.</p><p>It was more fun than either could recall having with another person.</p><p>“I wish you were my Sergeant,” Luke said as he settles Craig into his bed box later that night.</p><p>“Oh, no you don’t,” Craig assures him. “I’m a real hard arse. If you think Prescott’s bad, you’d hate me!”</p><p>“Well, maybe outside the station,” Luke answers. “Maybe we could be friends? Maybe if we played football together in your weekend team?”</p><p>“Maybe,” says Craig. “When you make Sergeant. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about tonight?”</p><p>“No,” Luke replies shyly, “but it would be good if we could talk about that another time.”</p><p>“Well, what do you want to discuss?”</p><p>“Um, I wanted to ask you about – well, something a bit strange for me but I thought you might be able to help me.”</p><p>And slowly, in halting and ambiguous sentences, Luke explains to his secret magical friend how he’s been feeling, the critical aspects of his true nature that he has been able to suppress for so long but that are now bobbing to the surface since he met Perry.</p><p>Craig listens, asks sensitive questions and prepares once more to give Luke some good advice but he is awake long after Luke’s breathing has grown shallow and rhythmic.</p><p>The spider stares into the dark, solemn and sad, the thought of a kiss good night the last thing on his mind.</p><p>Part Eleven</p><p>The next morning spider and constable woke within seconds of each other. The constable is optimistic and irritatingly cheerful; the spider is more subdued.</p><p>“Sleep well?” Craig asks politely from his box.</p><p>Luke stretches his arms way above his head and grins split to fit.</p><p>“Fantastic!”</p><p>The spider has a sad little smile. “Good. Are you going to work into early again?”</p><p>“You betcha,” Luke says as he springs out of bed. “And I’m going to get the gym straight after work and do just as you said!”</p><p>Luke has been staggering under the weight of a monumental crush on the blonde fitness instructor for weeks, struggling with his true self and all that entails for years. Like most confused young men Luke had longed to discuss his uncertainties and Craig, who knows precisely how hard that can be, counselled him intelligently and sensitively.</p><p>“You have to understand one important thing,” he told Luke gravely in the dark the night before. “Being gay doesn’t just mean physically attracted to the same sex. It means being emotionally attracted to other men as well.”</p><p>“How do you mean?” Luke asked.</p><p>“A lot of young gay men think it’s all about sex, that all you have to do to find a great relationship is to have sex. They have lots of great sex but never engage emotionally with anyone then wonder why they end up so unhappy.”</p><p>“I’ve had some sex,” Luke muttered, failing to define exactly how much he meant by “some.”  In fact Luke’s sexual experience had been confined exclusively to men he met at a couple of dark and restricted locations.</p><p>The warm concerned voice continued.</p><p>“Make sure if you get involved with Perry that you look after the emotional side of the relationship too. Make sure you know what you want and make sure he can give you what you want.”</p><p>Luke grinned. “I reckon he can give me what I want.”</p><p>Craig was stern.  “I don’t mean in bed. It’s important that your partner supports you and is interested in you and that you feel the same way about him. Don’t confuse sex with love.”</p><p>“I’m twenty five,” Luke sniffed. “I know the difference between love and sex.”</p><p>“Good,” the spider said. “Then you and Perry could be a very happy couple.”</p><p>But Craig didn’t like the sound of Perry. He was a little reticent about gym instructors in general and had grown very fond of Luke specifically. However, Craig wanted Luke to be happy so was warm and encouraging in spite of his better judgement. He gave Luke a whole series of potential dating scenarios and some interesting methods by which Luke might encourage blonde Perry to come out on a date.</p><p>“He obviously likes you. In my experience that’s one of the things that attracts you to another person, that you feel warmth from them,” Craig told him.</p><p>“I think he does like me,” Luke admitted in a low voice with an embarrassed grin. “I’m a bit worried he won’t if he gets to know me.”</p><p>The spider felt a huge range of emotions in his tiny heart but maintained an impartial perspective.</p><p>“Be yourself,” Craig concluded. “All you can ever do is be honest and then you are you’ve got nothing to worry about – and nothing to blame yourself about afterwards.”</p><p>                                 ***************************************</p><p>After Luke had gone to work Craig felt a little aimless. He wandered around the flat, jumped from the furniture for a while, spun a couple more webs but they were no longer interesting activities.</p><p>So he wandered back out to the kitchen, had a little drink from a small pool of water in the sink and made his way over to the window box. He looked out over the little suburb, sad and regretful but unsure precisely why he felt so. Aimlessly he trod gently over the soil, cleaned up some crumbs from the sparrows then curled into a snug spider ball, brooding, a tiny frown on his little black face. His only thought was Luke.</p><p>“Hopefully being in love with this bloody gym instructor will make him a little reckless and I can get him to kiss me goodbye. Literally.”</p><p>The early afternoon sun illuminated the blue sheen over his legs; its warmth made him drowsy. Slowly the specks of black eyes closed and he fell asleep.</p><p>                              ***************************************</p><p>The day was gone when Craig woke up cold and uncertain several hours later. He could hear animated voices in the flat; Luke’s voice was instantly recognisable but he had to guess at the identity of the other brash camp tones.</p><p>The enormous spider crept in through the window and straight towards the kitchen vent. If Luke had company Craig was certain he didn’t want to scare them away.</p><p>By the time he had made his way to the lounge room the voices were already in the bedroom, so he hurried around to the bedroom but the voices were no longer animated and friendly. Luke’s voice was uncertain and a little edgy while Perry’s was demanding.</p><p>Craig carefully eased his clumsy body over the vent and positioned himself so he could peer out without being detected. He could see Luke on the bed being ravished by the increasingly unpleasant Perry and knew from the tone in Luke’s voice that the young constable was not enjoying himself.</p><p>Craig watched for a few seconds before he moved his body slightly, turning away in distaste. He felt pity and anger for his friend and raised his fangs in frustration.</p><p>“If you were mine.”  But the spider (metaphorically) bit his lip and instead just turned away completely, only to see he was being watched by a small beetle nearby.</p><p>You’d be surprised what lives in the walls of buildings. In every building in every city in every country, entire colonies of bugs, beetles and mites make their own thriving insular communities.  Some bugs – like this beetle’s clan – have never in all their generations seen even another species of insect, let alone a human being. Their whole world is the dark dank interiors of the building; far as they are concerned they are only kind of creature in the universe.</p><p>The little beetle was frozen, agape of wonderment on his exquisite weeny face.</p><p>It made Craig a little awkward.</p><p>“Hullo, little bug person,” he said eventually. But the beetle just stared.</p><p>It was disconcerting so Craig pretended to be uninterested and turned around to see what was happening with Luke and Perry. He rather wished he hadn’t for Luke was grimacing, twisting uncomfortably in the older man’s grasp.</p><p>“It hurts a bit,” Luke told him but Perry was unconcerned.</p><p>“Just keep still, relax,” Perry panted as he pushed his weight against and into him. “I’m nearly there.”</p><p>Craig couldn’t bare it and turned his face down, blocking them from his view. He could hear though, hear the horrible Perry moaning dramatically and then Luke crying out in pain. Instinctively the spider reared up, his fangs sharp and wet, his body fiercely tense, ready to attack the enemy.</p><p>Bsatard, the spider thought bitterly, you nasty filthy bastard.</p><p>And then almost immediately Perry was out of bed, leaving Luke face down, spread-eagled and uncovered.</p><p>Luke looked over his shoulder, shifting painfully. “What’s up?”</p><p>“I’m off,” Perry said cheerfully. “Had a great time, thanks for that!” Already he was pulling his  smart sports clothes over his strong body.</p><p>“You’re going? Don’t you want to stay with...it’s no trouble, I get up early,”</p><p>“Have to get home to the boyf!” Perry said with a slimy grin. “He hates it when I’m late home!”</p><p>Luke sunk in to the bed, face down, sodden with humiliation.</p><p>Oh sweetheart, Craig said softly behind the grate.</p><p>“Anyway, maybe I’ll see you again at the gym? Are you a regular? You should be – those abs could use a bit of work. I could get you a discount on a six weeks course.  Come over and say hello if you come in again.” Perry was just about to make his artless getaway but stopped at the doorway of the bedroom when he realised something significant. “Hey, guess what? You’re the first copper I’ve done. Cool, hey?”</p><p>“Glad it meant something to you,” Luke said dejectedly.</p><p>“Yeah, it was great. Bye!”</p><p>The flat reverberated with the sound of the door slamming.</p><p>Part Twelve</p><p>Craig felt enormous pity for Luke who was still sprawled on the bed, his face hidden.</p><p>The spider was unsure what he should do, whether to leave Luke alone and speak with him in the morning or if it was safe to slip out and comfort him now.</p><p>“Damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” Craig drawled softly. A small rustling in the dark interior caused him to turn around and to his horror the spider saw he had an audience of two hundred little beetles, all gaped mouthed, all staring only at him.</p><p>“Hello,” Craig said. “Can I help you?”</p><p>But the beetles didn’t need help. All they wanted was to behold the extraordinary creature, this massive hairy being with so many limbs and a beautiful voice.</p><p>The fixed gazes were unnerving so Craig wandered away to sit and think in the dark. He could feel a tiny tremor in the beams under him and turned to see that the bug colony was following him. They stopped in unison when Craig stopped.</p><p>“What?" he said, but in a kind voice. They were stubby little grey brown beetles with the kind of clumsy cuteness that is inherent with their specific kind of ugliness.</p><p>Not one little bug uttered a sound or moved. They just stared.</p><p>So this was the main reason Craig decided to go to Luke, to escape a crowd of gawking beetles. He made his way back to the vent and all the little bugs started walking backwards, bumping into each other in their attempt to stay out of the spider’s path while still staring at him.</p><p>They all stopped still when Craig started to flatten his body to slip through the narrow opening. When Craig was on the other side every little bug rushed over to the vent to see where he would go. Each bug balanced on the grids of the grate, leaning over from their tiny perches, mesmerised as Craig walked down the wall.</p><p>Craig was unaware of his crowd of disciples. He looked carefully for the Constable’s Handbook and made an elegant leap over towards the thick tome.</p><p>When he landed Craig heard a tiny rousing cheer and turned to see all the bugs waving their antennae enthusiastically at the triumphant leap.</p><p>Luke lay on his bed and heard the tiny little noise from the grate. He thought, like we all would, that it was just the building settling.</p><p>“Luke?” Craig called over his friend.</p><p>“Go away,” he answered. “I’ve got nothing to say. I don’t want to talk about it.”</p><p>Craig made his way through the shadows, creeping gently over to his box on the side of Luke’s bed.</p><p>“It’s not your fault,” Craig told him gently as he approached.</p><p>“Damn right,” Luke sneered angrily. “It’s yours!”</p><p>Part Thirteen</p><p>To say Luke was angry was to call the Titanic a boating accident.</p><p>“It’s his fault,” Craig said quietly from the edge of the bed.</p><p>“You said to connect emotionally with him!” Luke snapped angrily. “ ‘Just be yourself’ you said. Well I was and he just walked out!”</p><p>“It had nothing to do with you,” Craig reasoned. “He was a bastard. He’s not interested in anybody but himself. That was obvious by the way he treated you. He was so selfish….”</p><p>“WERE YOU WATCHING?” Luke sat up, his face raw with anger.</p><p>Craig wasn’t sure what to say. He faltered a little, trying to soothe and defend at the same time. He chose his words carefully.</p><p>“No, I wasn’t watching, I was concerned, I was asleep outside when you came in, I didn’t want him to see that you had a giant spider and scare him off…”</p><p>“I don’t have a giant spider.” Luke said rudely. “I’m stuck with a bloody freeloading spider who’s overstayed his welcome!”</p><p>Craig’s little face sunk with sadness.</p><p>“Please don’t be angry with me, I know you’re upset and I want to help you…” Craig stretched his front legs out towards the young man.</p><p>“You’d help me by leaving.” Luke sunk back on the bed and sighed deeply, crushing his face in his hands. “I’m not even sure you’re real. I’m starting to think that I just made you up because I’m lonely.”</p><p>“I’m real,” Craig said, taking tiny steps towards him. “I’m real, and I want to help you. I’ll talk about it with you all night if you want. But please don’t blame yourself and don’t blame me. Blame the person who did this, the arsehole who cheated on his boyfriend.”</p><p>“HE”S NOT AN ARSEHOLE!” Luke yelled at him. “He’s a nice guy who really liked me and then just found out that I was boring and inexperienced.”</p><p>“Oh, Luke, don’t be ridiculous – he was a creep. It’s not supposed to be like that, you’re supposed to enjoy it too.”</p><p>Luke was sulkily defiant. “I did enjoy it.”</p><p>“Didn’t look like it,” Craig said and immediately covered his strong jaw with the tip of one his legs.</p><p>“You make me sick,” Luke said as he rolled over.</p><p>“You can do a lot better,” Craig ventured after a few seconds. He couldn’t bear to see Luke so upset.</p><p>“Thanks. I feel much better now, hearing a spider tell me that.”</p><p>“I’m a man,” Craig reminded him. “And I can tell you if you were mine I’d be treating you a lot better than that.”</p><p>Luke sniffed a little. Craig wondered if he were crying and very slowly made his way down to the bed.</p><p>“How would you treat me,” the sad constable asked in a dead seemingly uninterested voice.</p><p>Craig moved closer still to Luke’s naked form.</p><p>“Well,” he started quietly, “I’d take you to dinner. I’d let you chose where you wanted to go and I’d let you order the meal for both of us. I’d buy the best wine and make sure you ordered up big – and then had big dessert. Chocolate dessert. I’d flirt with you over dinner and…”</p><p>Craig suddenly felt very silly but was surprised when Luke moved a little and lifted his voice.</p><p>“What else?”</p><p>The spider inched towards Luke’s limp hand.</p><p>“I’d take you to see a play. I’d surprise you with something unusual and exciting…something like The Tempest or maybe The Glass House Menagerie – something we had to concentrate on, something we could talk about afterwards.”</p><p>“A play?” Luke said.</p><p>“Yeah,” Craig smiled, remembering how much he loved live theatre. “Down at the Barbican, so afterwards we could go for a walk through the city, maybe stop somewhere for a drink.” He remembered a bar that Luke would like. “I know a nice place where they do great cocktails and really nice finger food, we could stop there and talk a bit and I could flirt with you some more.”</p><p>“Then what?” Luke wondered.</p><p>“Well, I’d wait to see if you wanted me to come back to your place,,,,”</p><p>“So you could take me home, screw me and leave,” Luke said miserably.</p><p>“No. Absolutely not. I don’t ‘screw’ anyone. I hate that kind of thing. I like it long and slow, lots of talking and…” The spider was getting embarrassed.</p><p> </p><p>“So lots of talking and whatever and then you’d walk out,” Luke finished for him.</p><p>Craig was definite. “No. If you were mine, I’d want to be with you all the time. I’d take you to my favourite places, maybe down to Wales for the weekend...” The spider’s voice became dreamy. “I know a great beach down there, it’s really private. We could go swimming together, just the two of us - ”</p><p>“I can’t swim,” Luke interrupted.</p><p>“Didn’t they teach you at Hendon?”</p><p>“Yeah, but I’m not much good.”</p><p>“I’d teach you properly. And anyway, we don’t have to swim, we could just play around the water.” Craig could feel the icy surf and the pure sun on his limbs and suddenly wanted nothing else but to be back home.</p><p>“Play in the water?” Luke sounded like he was going to laugh.</p><p>Craig came back to earth.</p><p>“Yeah! You’re young, you don’t want to sit around talking all the time, and anyway, we had a great time last night, playing around, didn’t we?”</p><p>Luke was silent.</p><p>“Well, I thought we did,” Craig whispered. Very slowly he stretched his longest leg over to stroke Luke’s hand. In his mind Craig was a man again and he was stroking Luke with his hand, gently trying to comfort him, to connect in the most simple and effective way.</p><p>Luke turned around at the gentle touch and saw the massive spider apparently about to crawl on him.  He sprung away, furiously rubbing his hand.</p><p>“GET OFF MY BED!” he roared at Craig. “GET OUT!”</p><p>“Luke, please, I just wanted to - ”</p><p>“I just want you out now,” Luke said, still trying to scrape the feel of spider off his hand. “Go on, get out or I swear I’ll squash you. Go on! Out!”</p><p>Craig scampered up the wall and hurried to the door, genuinely frightened that Luke – at least in his current state of mind – would try to kill him.</p><p>“I’m going, I’m going,” Craig said desperately as he rushed to the doorframe. He looked up towards the vent, thinking he might spend the night behind the wall but two hundred pairs of minuscule enraptured eyes changed his mind.</p><p>“I’ll be in the kitchen,” Craig called to Luke, who was now hiding in bed. “Maybe we can talk in the morning?”</p><p>Luke snorted into his pillow. “If you’re as smart as you think you are you’ll be gone in the morning.”</p><p>Craig crept out silently, sad and slow, hopeful that a good night’s sleep might make Luke a bit more reasonable.</p><p> </p><p>Part Fourteen</p><p> </p><p>Neither Luke nor Craig slept well that night.</p><p>Craig wandered sadly into the kitchen, missing his cosy dry box and the scent of Luke. He ambled over the stove, over the fridge, up and down the walls but nothing looked inviting. He finally curled up under a teatowel but couldn’t get comfortable.</p><p>Luke tossed and turned, his thoughts swinging between his excruciating experience with Perry and Craig the spider, who wanted to take him to play and swim on a private beach.</p><p>Just as Luke can swing in to wild moods of luminous optimism, so can he slink in arduous funks of misery and fury. The more he thinks about something, the more extreme his mood will become.</p><p>By the time it was time to get out of bed Luke was seething with anger and regret, hating Perry for treating him so badly, hating himself for allowing himself to be used in such a way, hating Craig for bearing witness to it all.</p><p>Unfortunately for Craig, he was the most vulnerable target for Luke’s rage.</p><p>“I told you to get out,” was the first thing Luke spat at the spider when he walked into the kitchen.  Craig was waiting patiently on the teatowel, rather hopeful that he and Luke could have breakfast together and sort things out. He didn’t have much time left.</p><p>“I th – I wanted to see how you were,” the spider stammered uneasily. “I thought you might feel a bit better.”</p><p>“Well I don’t!” Luke told him emphatically. “I fell angry, sore and sick at the sight of you! So piss off and leave me alone!”</p><p>“Luke, please, listen to me. I can help you, I know what it’s like when you’re starting out. It’s really difficult and you can feel really isolated. I can help you, I really can - ” </p><p>“How can you help me? Taking me to see bloody boring play? Buying me bloody cocktails? You’re a spider, remember? About all you could do is hold the door open for me.”</p><p>“I’m a man,” Craig said, almost pleading, “and I don’t have much time left. Please, we’ve got on really well, we could be great mates, don’t you think?”</p><p>Luke stared at the big hairy beast with a sour still face. Gradually he understood what Craig wanted.</p><p>“You think I’m going to kiss you,” he said in a low fuming voice.</p><p>The spider lifted both his legs, figuring there was no point in pleading Luke’s welfare anymore. Craig had no choice but to plead for his own life.</p><p>“Luke, I have a family. I’ve a brother and a sister – my sister’s just a had a baby – and I’ve got a mum and dad, I call them a couple of times a week and they’d be worried sick about me. I’ve got a good job, and I’ve got a flat – I’ve told you all this.”</p><p>Craig’s begging seemed to make things worse. Luke’s face grew cruel and he stepped toward the spider.</p><p>“Get out. Get out now.”</p><p>“Luke, I’ve got a life, I don’t want to die and my mum and dad not even know what happen. They’d be worried sick. I’ve got friends, they’d be looking for me, I have -”  Craig’s voice started creaking and desperate tears came to his eyes. “I really like my life and love my family. Luke, please, I know you’re unhappy but I can help -”</p><p>“YOU CAN GET OUT,” Luke screamed at him, lunging towards the sink, grabbing the first thing he could lay his hand on. He snatched the takeaway container they had played with the other night, holding it mid air to capture the Bolivian Blue Leg.</p><p>In his confused fright Craig foolishly ran along the counter and not up the wall out of Luke’s reach. The angry young man slammed the container over the spider, catching one of his legs and his terrified hurry to get away Craig pulled and the leg snapped clean from his body.</p><p>“Ow, Christ, that hurts…” and then Craig could see he had lost a limb. He tried to re-balance his large body on the unfamiliar slippery surface while Luke rushed to the window. Next thing Craig knew he was sailing through the air, trying to cling to the side of the smooth container, clenching his little eyes shut, completely rigid with fear.</p><p>Luke watched the container land under the tree.</p><p>“Good riddance,” he called out after his magical friend and slammed the window shut.</p><p>The soft grass broke Craig’s fall but he was a big spider - he fell heavily and it left him bruised and disorientated. His vision was blurred and split, his body hurt where his leg had been wrenched away and his little heart thundered with fear.</p><p>The heartbroken creature sat still and careful until his sight steadied and he could take in his surroundings. Gradually he recognised the exterior of the building where he had woken to the sound of Roxy Music seemingly years ago. In a pathetic effort to calm himself he sipped slowly at a few drops of dew,  then he broke down completely.</p><p>“I’m going to die,” Craig cried to himself in exhausted misery. “He’s tossed me out to die.”</p><p>And on the outside vent, two hundred little beetles stared out in the wide world, amazed that the spider had disappeared from the view, disappeared into a bright extraordinary coloured world that they never knew existed.</p><p> </p><p>Part Fifteen</p><p>Guilt comes to us in many ways.</p><p>Sometimes it washes us over us immediately after we have done something wrong, sometimes it will come gradually like a virus when we finally stop to consider what wrong we have done.</p><p>And sometimes it will appear like a stab wound, sharp and hideous, bleeding profusely, when we are pierced by evidence of our wrongness.</p><p>Luke showered, dressed and stormed out his flat without a moment’s thought to the ugly act of cruelty he had just committed.</p><p>He arrived at work just on time, stood through parade dutifully, respectfully accepted his assignment in CAD and talked cheerfully to workmates as he walked through the corridors with no thought of Craig.</p><p>He took calls, checked locations, verified details of car identification numbers and took direction from the charmless Sergeant Prescott, who was rostered in the CAD room with him. Still no thought of Craig.</p><p>By rights he should have taken refs at 10am but it was busy so Prescott fetched some coffee while the phones went wild.</p><p>When it quietened down a little later the Sergeant generously offered Luke his newspaper.</p><p>“Take your break here,” Prescott</p><p>The constable sipped his cooling coffee as he unfolded the tabloid. The bitter liquid seem to solidify in his gullet as he turned the front page and saw a picture of a dark eyed handsome man in a Met sergeant’s uniform, staring at him.</p><p>Luke stared at the text, his lips moving slightly as he read.</p><p>“Wimbledon Met is mystified by the disappearance of Sergeant Craig Gilmore. The Welsh sergeant has not been seen or heard from since last Tuesday. He failed to report for his shift  last Tuesday and Wimbledon Police Spokesperson Inspector Michelle Larkin says the failure to report for duty is entirely out of character. Sergeant Gilmore has not contacted friends or family and his bank accounts are untouched.”</p><p>Luke felt the muscles in his throat tighten as he read the appeal from Craig’s parents in Wales, the quotes from his friends, the fact that police has interviewed the Sergeant’s partner Adrian Herrington twice.</p><p>“Ex-partner,” Luke whispered to himself.</p><p> </p><p>Strange, isn’t it?” Prescott said over Luke’s shoulder. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Read it myself this morning. If you ask me he’s killed himself.”</p><p>“He might just be missing,” Luke said weakly.</p><p>“Nah, cops like him don’t disappear. He’s gone off for a reason. Probably had a tiff with his boyfriend.”  The way Prescott emphasised the word boyfriend made Luke queasy.</p><p>Luke had nothing more to say as he was consumed by a black oily swirl of scalding guilt.</p><p>He stared at the picture of Craig for a long time, the pretty velvety eyes, the steady gaze, the rich heavy mouth.</p><p>Then he folded the paper and stared at his screen. Prescott was snarling down the phone to a member of public when Luke made his decision.</p><p>“Sarge,” he said urgently as the older man snapped he connection on the call, “I have to go home quickly. I’ve just remembered, I left the iron on. It’s an old building, I might blow a fuse.”</p><p>Prescott was as devoid of imagination as he was of language skills. He believed Luke completely.</p><p>“Careless mistake. Easy enough to do though. Well, hurry up. Back here in thirty minutes and it comes of your lunch break.”</p><p>Luke was already halfway out the door. “Thanks Sarge.”</p><p> </p><p>Part Sixteen</p><p>What a rotten way to go.</p><p>It’s been three hours since Craig was tossed out the window. He’ s quiet, his body is cooling, the stressful fall has sapped his strength considerably. Between his second and fourth leg the gaping wound dribbles thin pale arachnoid blood.</p><p>The beautiful blue spider is motionless in the grass, his limbs curling around his segmented body as it slowly sinks into ground.</p><p>“Well, that’s it,” Craig whispers to himself resignedly. “Time’s up.”</p><p>He looks around wearily for the last time and sees a couple of delighted locusts are feeding on his severed limb nearby. The grass around him rustles slightly and a large green shadow moves over him; Craig tips his head slightly and sees a pretty placid triangular face pressed close to his, a curious preying mantis wondering what this vast glorious creature that glows blue might be.</p><p>The fading spider is grateful for company, any company, in his last hours and reaches out to touch the pretty mantis.</p><p>“Hello lovely,” Craig says with a sore husky voice but the noise startles the graceful insect and she leaps away.</p><p>“Everyone hates spiders,” Craig says sadly into the grass.</p><p>The sun lifts higher in the clear sky but the warmth is not comforting – Craig feels as if he is burning and his throat is rasping with thirst.</p><p>I’m dying, he says to himself over and over. His eyes sting, too dry to form tears.</p><p>From the large tree a large crow on a low bough has spied Craig and swoops to the ground in one fluid movement. She approaches the ailing spider slowly, beak watering.</p><p>Happy thoughts, Craig tells himself weakly, not knowing that the crow approaches. Have to die thinking happy thoughts.</p><p>So as the large bird steps towards him, Craig conjures up every cheerful memory he can - his mother and her lovely  scent, his father grinning broadly at him, his brother and sister, his flat and his friends. The memories come in random snapshots, clear and sharp and loud but all paling when he recalls Luke, dancing in the kitchen when he first saw him, luminous and beautiful in his bed night after night, his face engaged and lively when he and Craig talked and joked together.</p><p>Craig tries to block these thoughts of the man who tossed him away to die but they are growing brighter, pulsing as the earth starts to shake beneath him. Someone is running towards him, someone in heavy boots is charging towards the tree, calling his name.</p><p>“Craig!” Luke is calling, searching the grass for the container in which Craig was launched from the window.  “Craig! Where are you? Can you hear me?”</p><p>Luke stops when he realises that his hearty steps could crush a spider. He looks around him nervously, hesitantly lifting his boots to check there no Craig was flattened underneath.</p><p> “Where are you?” Luke asks helplessly, looking frantically around the thick grass then lifting his frightened face to scan the tree. “Are you up there?”</p><p>Craig is too weak to answer and in any case is not entirely sure Luke hasn’t come back to finish him off. He sits quietly in the grass, just a few feet from the big black boots and sees, too late, the giant black bird bending over him.</p><p>Luckily for Luke South American tarantulas are not difficult to spot; luckily too that crows are greedy birds who would risk a human presence to snatch a meal. Luke sees the bird pecking furiously at the grass and then sees the black blue spider contrasted against the ugly bile yellow beak.</p><p>“Get away from Craig!” Luke shrieks, rushing towards his magical friend, waving his hands furiously at the bird. “Get away! Go on! Bugger off!” The bird glares at Luke with loathing but its timid heart batters in its breast and it flies off before Luke boots it out of the way.</p><p>“Craig!” Luke falls to his knees to check the spider is still alive. He is punctured in two places, tiny pools of cloudy fluid gathering where the beak pierced him.</p><p>“Oh Craig,” Luke says with a mournful voice. “I am so sorry, so truly sorry! Please say something.”</p><p>The spider, now in horrible pain, can hear the voice faintly but it no longer registers with him.</p><p>“Craig?” Luke courageously prods the spider very gently with his index finger. “Are you okay?”</p><p>The spider is still and stiff.</p><p>“Oh Craig.” Luke’s heart floods with regret and grief. “I’m so sorry…” and he stares down at the magnificent large spider that seems now to have died. “I’m so sorry! I came to save you, to change you back…can you hear me?”</p><p>There’s no response.</p><p>Luke sits on his haunches and realises his loss: the thought that Craig has gone causes him inexplicable grief. One simple kiss could have prevented all this and kept his magical friend alive. He touches the soft furry blue back spider gently with his index finger.</p><p>“Oh, Craig…”</p><p>Concentration and determination form shadows across Luke’s face as he realises that there might still be hope.</p><p>Better late than never, Luke tells himself grimly, better to try than to never know. He takes a deep breath, leans over, his lips relax as he tenderly kisses the spider better.</p><p>The young man expects the most disgusting sensation but is surprised by a soft tickling warmth. He draws his face back slightly, only to be blinded by a brilliant flash of rosy light and a forceful gush of glorious wind that pushes right through him, all around him, the sweetest and most intense feeling he has ever known, knocking him flat on his backside.  It’s over in a second and when Luke opens his eyes there is no spider – a tall man lays before him, arms outstretched, his handsome face turned to one side, pale and unshaven, sleeping like an angel.</p><p>Spells are funny things, powerful forces of nature that don’t stop with one action. Their strength and intention vibrates through the air over and over for centuries, back and forth between the people who cast them and the people bound by them and the people like Luke who intervene to break them.</p><p>Everyone knows the basic tenant of the spell – turn you into a frog, kiss you back to a prince – but not everyone knows that the person who breaks the spell also changes the spell.</p><p>So the malevolence that Adrian used to put a spell on Craig is filtered and sweetened by Luke’s genuine humble contrition and the sincerity of his kiss. The kiss in turn casts a spell on Luke, a spell that draws him to deep and everlasting love with the first person he sees when he opens his eyes.</p><p>(And there’s more. The left over nastiness now rushes through this world to revisit the person who cast it originally. Which is why a young detective interviewing the nasty Adrian returns after fetching him a cup of coffee to find not the handsome untruthful gay man but a large crow that now perches, screeching, in the interview room.)</p><p>Luke blinks repeatedly as he beholds the tall sleeping man before him. He feels as if the world is suddenly clear and clean, that all things are good and nothing can go wrong. He feels his heart tingling, flooding with perfect happiness, rising as if a powerful tide lifts him away from the person he was this morning. Luke’s face lightens, flushes with colour and fills with a beautiful smile as he stares at the man he has fallen in love with.</p><p>The young constable is enchanted for several seconds before Craig’s deep laboured breathing frightens him back to earth.</p><p>Luke grabs at his left shoulder, squeezing his radio to life, hearing his voice amongst this perfect world as if someone else was speaking, unable to tear his eyes from the perfect man before him.</p><p>“Urgent, ambulance required,” Luke says with a powerful voice. “ IC1 male with apparent head injuries, repeat, urgent ambulance required….”</p><p>Part Seventeen</p><p>It had been Luke’s intention to go with Craig in the ambulance to the hospital but things rarely turn out as they should.</p><p>“You just found him here?” a grizzly looking detective asks Luke for the umpteenth time.</p><p>Luke uses every last gram of energy to maintain his focus.</p><p>“I told you, I live up there.” Luke points to his flat again. “I came home in my break to turn the iron off and he was under the tree.”</p><p>Which, technically, is true.</p><p>“Why’d you leave the iron on?” the detective wants to know.</p><p>Luke wants to scream.</p><p>“Is he alright?” he asks instead.</p><p>“Looks alright,” the detective answers, entirely uninterested. “So you’ve never seen him before today?”</p><p>Luke sighs and tells the truth – technically – again.</p><p>“Never seen him before in my life.”</p><p>He watches the ambulance drive  away with his magical friend, watches until the vehicle is quite small and then disappears. He does not see Prescott who approaches in Luke’s immediate range of sight.</p><p>“Who’s a clever boy then?” Prescott says without a scrap of irony.</p><p>Luke has no idea. He can only think of one thing.</p><p>“Want me to get down to the hospital Sarge?”</p><p>Again Prescott speaks without a scrap of emotion.</p><p>“No need. Got Riggs and Baker there. You may as well get back to the station and write up the report. Great work, Ashton.”</p><p>“Thanks, Sarge.”</p><p>As Luke walks away, Prescott remembers something critical. He snatches his arm and addresses the constable with a passionate urgency.</p><p>“Did you turn the iron off?”</p><p>                                 *********************</p><p> </p><p>Very few people who are turned into spiders manage to have the spell reversed, otherwise the medical personnel treating Craig might have been a little more familiar with the strange array of symptoms he displays.</p><p>Several doctors and countless nurses scrutinised every aspect of his injuries and vitals. His pulse was taken every ten minutes, lights were shone in his beautiful expresso eyes, his tongue was depressed with a flat stick while the lining of his throat was examined, careful fingers tapped across his abdomen to check for thickening tissue that might indicate bleeding. All the while the doctors and nurses called his name loudly, causing him to wake from his bleary unconsciousness with irregular blinking.</p><p>Apart from obvious dehydration, slight malnutrition and some inexplicable wounds, they could find nothing wrong with him.</p><p>So they x-rayed his bones and scanned his head then stood staring at the shadowy images for a half an hour. All they could see was a slightly cracked rib, but as one young nurse pointed out, it did not look like a recent injury.</p><p>So they sponged him down, sedated him and sent him off to an intensive care ward where he was watched closely in case some unexpected illness rose to the surface of his healthy demeanour.</p><p>Craig was snoring, pleasant adult male snoring, when his parents and siblings arrived that afternoon. They held his hand, kissed his sleepy warm face and some of his mother’s grateful tears dripped down his face but failed to rouse him.</p><p>Luke, who had rushed over straight from his shift, watched from the door.</p><p>Not tonight, he told himself, and walked home sadly, still a little dazed.</p><p>When he got back to his quiet flat he looked at all the webs in the corners over and over and noticed how very well made they were. </p><p>                                ****************************</p><p>Craig’s injuries are so odd that the following morning a progressive house surgeon has brought a group of medical students to view them.</p><p>Sergeant Gilmore sleeps on his belly, warm and comfortable, still under the spell of the sedative. The surgeon checks the patient’s notes and sees Craig will be showered and fed when he wakes up.</p><p>The students gather eagerly around in the bed, clutching their notebooks and pens. They’ve all read about him and have spent the last few minutes conjecturing  what might have happened. Theories from our doctors of the future range from the jealous boyfriend through to alien abduction to  kidnapping by a sexually perverted cult.</p><p>“What are those marks on his back?” one of the students asks, pointing at the small bloodied gouges between the wide shoulders.</p><p>“Your guess is as good as mine,” the house surgeon says honestly. “He looks like he’s been punctured with something hard and blunt.”</p><p>“Tortured?” a macabre student asks hopefully.</p><p>The house surgeon shrugs. “Maybe. What about this wound here? Any guesses?”</p><p>The senior doctor gently moves the sheet and light cotton blanket covering Craig to reveal a shallow bloodied scab on his waist, close to the small of his back.</p><p>All of the students look closely, gently poking the wound with their clean hands. One brave girl who wants to be a forensic scientist has a guess.</p><p>“It’s like, well, sort of like something was pulled off him. But it’s not deep enough for a stab wound, it’s more like something was stuck on him and pulled off.”</p><p>“That’s what we think, but we can’t work out how. Unfortunately the patient doesn’t remember,” the doctor replies and a flurry of note taking ensues.</p><p>“Definitely tortured,” the macabre student writes with a note of satisfaction.</p><p>(Actually, for the brief period he was conscious when he was brought to casualty yesterday afternoon Craig had perfect recollection of how he incurred his wounds but knew there was no point in telling the charge nurse that a crow had tried to eat him and a man pulled his leg off trying to catch him. In any case he was tired and a little dopey and couldn’t be bothered.)</p><p>                  ************************</p><p> </p><p>Luke stands in parade in a daze. He has not slept very well, he has not eaten at all, he finds it difficult to even swallow a little water.</p><p>He has every classic symptom of a man in love.</p><p>When the rest of his colleagues turn to him grinning, cheering and clapping, Luke stares at them dumbly, wondering who they are applauding.</p><p>“Good work Ashton,” he hears the graceless Prescott call from the front of the room. “You saved the life of a fellow officer and solved an extremely important misper case. Good work.”</p><p>Luke sees Prescott is almost smiling and this confuses him further.</p><p>                          *******************</p><p>Luke spends the day in the CAD room with Prescott again.</p><p>“Teacher’s pet,” the rest of the relief sneer at him over refs.</p><p>Luke barely hears them.</p><p> </p><p>                           *****************</p><p>Craig’s family have been hovering over him all afternoon, convinced that he will disappear again if they let him out of their sight.</p><p>“I’m very tired,” he tells them in the early evening. “It’s not that that I don’t love you, but…”</p><p>And they all understand, patting his hand, his mother gently tucking the blankets around him, plumping his pillows.</p><p>“Don’t fuss now,” his father says quietly, mostly because he wants to get her out of the way so he can move in closer to fuss a little.</p><p>You never know what you have until you almost lose it. None of Craig’s family has said this to him but that’s all they can think as they kiss him goodbye, stroke his arm, promise they’ll be back tomorrow.</p><p>It’s hard to tell what Craig’s thinking as he lies in his white room; all that is certain is that he draws his knees up over and over as if he is checking his legs. Now and then he looks at both his hands.</p><p>But the young man at the door, who watches as he bites his lip and prevaricates whether he should just walk in or run away, well, his thoughts are obvious. They shine through his eyes, they are obvious in the soft brightness of his skin and the shyness of his gestures when Craig looks up and smiles at him.</p><p>You never know what you have until you almost lose it.</p><p>“Okay if I come in?” he asks Craig in an unsteady voice.</p><p>Craig straightens his legs and smiles gently.</p><p>“Sure.”</p><p> </p><p>Part Eighteen</p><p>Oh, the wonder of being a man again!</p><p>In the last thirty six hours, Craig has been struck with how wonderful the world really is. His simple conclusion has been reached by remembering how much he likes his legs, how much he loves his hands, how much he enjoys getting food and fluid into his stomach and, most overwhelming of all, the pleasant realisation that everything will now go back to normal.</p><p>He has wondered about Adrian only once, a quick satisfying notion of socking him square on the nose, but the wonder was quickly dampened by the thought of being turned into a spider again.</p><p>(Craig, obviously, is unaware that evil begets evil and that Adrian’s chief concerns are now finding enough food in the garbage of London and avoiding lice. Given the goodness of Craig’s heart it is a pretty good bet that, if he did know,  he would feel pity for his old boyfriend and not vengeful glee.)</p><p>Wonderful young Luke has entered his mind a couple of times but mostly in cloudy, disjointed thoughts. Craig wondered if Luke might be curious enough to see what he was like as a man, wondered if he was sorry for slinging him out a window, wondered what made him come back to try and save him.</p><p>As Luke walks towards him now, self conscious and awkward, Craig wonders if he will be able to find anything out.</p><p>Luke sits down very carefully. All he wants to do is sit and stare at Craig with a gaping adoring face so his actions are very controlled and very formal. He looks quickly at the top of Craig’s head, then sends his eyes down right down to the long feet.</p><p>“Not surprising you turned into a giant tarantula,” Luke decides as he absorbs the full Gilmore.  “You were probably about to scale, when you think about it.”</p><p>Craig hasn’t wondered about this. “How big was I?” and Luke uses both his hands to give Craig a rough estimate.</p><p>“Huge!”</p><p>Craig softens when he sees Luke’s nervous attractive smile. Wonderful how different he looks when you can see him with normal 20-20 vision.</p><p>“Nice of you to come and see me.”</p><p>The young man pulls a navy blue vinyl chair towards the bed. “Course I came. I was …” Luke looks at Craig’s attentive face and changes his tact. “I wanted to say sorry for hurting you. I didn’t mean…I mean, I wasn’t wanting…is your leg okay?” Luke wonders if Craig retained all his limbs in his transformation.</p><p>“No, a couple of locusts ate it!” And when Luke is mortified, Craig grins to let him know everything is alright. “Didn’t matter, I had spares! It left a mark where it came off though - want to see?” Craig has the generous face peculiar to all patients when they have a wound or scar to share, but Luke doesn’t recall Craig being wounded when he last saw him and he panics.</p><p>“What happened? Did you lose your leg?”</p><p>Craig shakes his handsome head, lifts the blankets and his hospital gown to show Luke the odd wound on his torso.</p><p>“Oh God! Is that where your leg…oh God! I did that!” Luke’s face drops with miserable regret.</p><p>Craig wonders why Luke would be so upset at the sight of a shallow flesh wound.</p><p>“No, it’s alright, it doesn’t’ hurt. I didn’t mean to scare you. I think it’s pretty interesting, really.” Craig re-adjusts his bedclothes, lowers his voice. “I just showed you because – well, you’re the only one who actually knows about it. I thought it was amazing, that the leg wound would come back with me.”</p><p>“Amazing,” Luke agrees weakly. “Does it hurt?”</p><p>“It itches a bit. But I’m alright, I’m not in pain.”</p><p>Luke chews his bottom lip and looks at his feet. He’s not usually this tongue-tied. “I came last night but your mum and dad were here.”</p><p>Craig’s eyes grow wonderfully bright.  </p><p>“Why didn’t you come in? They would have liked to have met you. They keep asking me how they can find you and thank you but I couldn’t give them the address. I only know how to find your place from the outside.”</p><p>“Nothin’ to thank me for,” Luke mumbles. “I should have done it when you first came to the flat. Kissed you, I mean. I wished I had.”</p><p>Craig wonders whether he should pat Luke’s hand but decides it would be prudent to gather more information first.</p><p>“What made you come back? After you threw – after you put me out? Why did you come back?”</p><p>Shame seeps over Luke’s face. “I saw you in the paper. Then I read what all your family were saying and your inspector and I realised you were just like me – you know, in the force and that you had friends and stuff – like you said, that you had a life and then I realised what I had done to you, that we had been really good friends and I just chucked you out. I didn’t think about it when I did it but when I read how worried your mum was – well, you know, I talk to people everyday who’ve lost someone, and I knew where you were and everything…it made me sick.  You were nice to me and everything, all the things you told me to do were right.” A portion of that wise advice comes back to Luke and he half smiles with embarrassed yet curiously pleased eyes. “Everyone says I’m Prescott’s pet now.”</p><p>Craig laughs, a wondrous genuine laugh with creased eyes and wide mouth that makes Luke stammer as he continues.</p><p>“And I – I mean, you know… even if you weren’t like me I  I sh-shouldn’t – I still didn’t have any right to treat you like that. You were a good spider and we had great fun. I was really upset about Perry, and I took that out on you and I shouldn’t have. I didn’t mean to.”</p><p>“It all turned out alright,” Craig says magnanimously. “Don’t worry about it.” He fidgets in his narrow bed for a minute. “What are you going to do about Perry?”</p><p>Luke wonders if he should make a quip about turning Perry into a spider but decides it doesn’t seem particularly funny.</p><p>“I’m going to join another gym,” he scowls. “S’pose I could follow him home and tell his boyfriend what he does behind his back, but I can’t see the point really. Wouldn’t make him any less of a bastard or make me feel better.”</p><p>“I know what you mean,” Craig answers quietly.</p><p>Luke sits up straight, stretches his shoulders a little and changes the subject.</p><p>“Are they going to let you go home soon?”</p><p>“In a day or two!” Craig says brightly. “I can’t wait.”</p><p>“Have you got someone to look after you?” Luke is sure he sounds more eager than he wants to but Craig apparently doesn’t notice.</p><p>“My mum and dad are up from Swansea so they’re staying with me, and my brother lives in Watford, so he can come over easily.”</p><p>“What about your sister? Did she have her baby?”</p><p>“In three weeks.” Craig’s face is beautiful, light and so glad, not only because he anticipates his first nephew. “She came down to see me but went back to Cardiff last night.”</p><p>“So you won’t be alone,” Luke clarifies.</p><p>“No, I’ll be fine.”</p><p>“Good, good. That’s good.” That sorts about everything; Luke can’t see any reason to stay anymore. “Well, I guess I should let you get some rest.”</p><p>Craig nods. “Okay. Nice of you to come. And thanks for the apology. And thanks for letting me stay at your flat. Probably saved my life.”</p><p>“Until I nearly killed you,” Luke mutters with his face lowered.</p><p>Craig wonders why Luke keeps dwelling on that.</p><p>“Cheer up, I’m fine,” he says softly. “If I had a big bossy know-all spider in my kitchen I’d probably throw him out too.”</p><p>But Luke doesn’t haven’t to wonder long to know that Craig would never have behaved as badly. He stands up and pushes his chair back against the wall.</p><p>“Glad that you’re okay anyway,” is all he says.</p><p>“Yeah, thanks. And thanks for dropping by.”</p><p>The young constable lifts his chin and looks deeply in to the dark eyes that he can hardly bare to hold.</p><p>“You want me to kiss you good night before I go?”</p><p>Craig wonders whether Luke is joking. “No, you’re safe now,” and he lightly touches Luke’s forearm. The soft touch spikes incredible longing through Luke;  he wonders if he should ask Craig if he can see him again, wonders if he should tell Craig how much he misses coming home to him, wonders if he should tell him that he can’t think of anything else but Craig, not anymore.</p><p>Craig wonders what will happen next.</p><p> The visitor has one more look and memorises the wonderful face forever.</p><p>“Well, bye.”</p><p>“See ya, Constable.”</p><p> </p><p>Part Nineteen</p><p> </p><p>No phone call, no visit, nothing. It’s like he just disappeared. Maybe I did make the whole thing up.</p><p>So thinks miserable lovesick Luke as he walks into his building after another week of work.</p><p>It has been two weeks since Luke last saw Craig.</p><p>Life goes on – work, friends, a new gym, some new cds, reading in bed – but now, under the spell of the most magic of all emotions, Luke finds life is not the same without his magical friend.</p><p>On this bleary Friday when Luke finds an unexpected quantity of mail stuffed in his letter box. It’s all boring – bills, junk mail and an especially dull letter from the local council.</p><p>It warns Luke of a fine he is incurring for an overdue book.</p><p>That night Luke lays on the floor alone and reads the Big Book of Tarantulas again. It makes him feel less lonely, reminds him how interesting life was when there was a tarantula in his life. It gets him thinking.</p><p>“Well, even if I can’t have Craig I can still have a spider,” and the resourceful young man logs on to the internet to see if he might be able to buy his own Bolivian Blue in London.</p><p>He finds a specialist pet shop in Camden, not far from the railway station. The thought of bringing home a giant spider on the train appeals to him; he likes the idea of having a vast intimidating lacy shape on his pale walls again, he likes making a tenuous link to Craig in his lonely life.</p><p>The cold comfort helps him to sleep soundly that night.</p><p>But in the clear sunny morning the magic of Luke’s little plan has faded. No amount of spiders will replace Craig.</p><p>He sits on the edge of his bed, looking around the room for some clues, inspiration, anything that might motivate him to get up and do something. The vent is stark and white, the walls plain and grey.</p><p>Nothing comes.</p><p>So instead Luke dresses nicely and decides he might go see a film. Or walk through the park or go buy some more cds.  Something, anything he says as he opens his front door.</p><p>And then the magic begins.</p><p>When he closes the door behind him he sees something taped there, something black and grey in a crackling cellophane bag that is stapled to an envelope.  Luke carefully pulls the package free and sees someone has sent him a dozen little plastic flies. A sheet of thick creamy paper is folded neatly inside the envelope and a careful penmanship gives him the first set of instructions.</p><p>Go to the front desk of Wimbledon Police Station at 11am this morning. There’s another envelope waiting for you there.</p><p>Luke stuffs his flies in his pocket, heart beating widely, his feet barely touching the ground as he makes his way to the tube. Craig!</p><p>He is breathless and flushed pink when he reaches the counter. A mousy little civilian police officer with a shock of wiry grey brown hair tethered into an untidy bun looks at him with uninterested watery blue eyes. Her greeting is stiff and unfeeling.</p><p>“I’ve come to pick up an envelope,” Luke says cautiously. “My name’s Luke Ashton.”</p><p>Her tone changes abruptly and she lights up, animated and friendly.</p><p>“Oh! Constable Ashton! Sergeant Gilmore said you’d be here.” She leans behind her and produces another envelope, crisp and smooth as the last. “He left this for you.”</p><p>Luke is disappointed. He wanted to see Craig, he expected Craig. He looks at the envelope closely but it says nothing, all its secrets are tucked inside.</p><p>“Is he around?” Luke asks casually.</p><p>“The Sarge? No, he’s on a raid or something, maybe patrol.” She eyes Luke over carefully. He seems safe enough. “Is the Sarge a friend of yours?”</p><p>Luke composes another technically truthful answer. “Yeah, sort of. He stayed in my flat for a while.” Luke looks her over and feels she is safe too. “Do you like working for him?”</p><p>The young woman baulks. “He’s a real hardarse!” And then she remembers she is talking to the hardarse’s friend. “But he’s fair. You know, if you do the right thing by him.”</p><p>Luke nods as if he thought as much. He tips the air lightly with his new envelope.</p><p>“Thanks!”</p><p>“My pleasure. Bye!” And she watches the handsome young constable walk out the door.</p><p>When he is out her sight Luke stops and opens the envelope. There are no flies now, just a small business card for a restaurant in the City and another beautifully written note.</p><p>You’ll have to hurry. Lunch is at 12.30pm. Give the head waiter this card when you get to the door.</p><p>Luke springs back to life and rushes to the tube.</p><p>It is a beautiful restaurant; Luke is sure he is under-dressed and that the staff will turn him away. Instead the maitre’d seems to be expecting him, welcoming him warmly when Luke hands him the card.</p><p>“Hello Luke! Just in time for lunch!”</p><p>Luke smiles politely as he led to a small table in a cosy private corner – a table that is set for one. His heart sinks.</p><p>He seems to wait a long time for the menu and, convinced he has been forgotten, prepares to leave when another waiter approaches with an entrée of prawns seared in sesame oil and ginger. They are extraordinary, soaking Luke’s senses with their heavy flavour, tense and firm in his mouth, almost bursting with a buttery tenderness when he chews.</p><p>No sooner has the plate been taken away than his main course arrives, the establishment’s signature dish of pasta with crab, chilli and parmesan. The pasta is al dente, ripe and robust against the complex blend of the herb and cheese.</p><p>And then dessert. At first Luke thinks he has been served a perfectly symmetrical oval of chocolate mouse on a plate that has a spider web and autumn leaf pattern.  But when he sets his spoon in the shallow dish the web moves, the leaves flutter and he sees the web has been painstakingly created by drizzles of chocolate over a pool of thin cream while the leaves have been made from orange, raspberry and lemon sauce.</p><p>He is draining his coffee, confused but utterly content after the sublime meal, when the maitre’d approaches with another envelope.</p><p>“You’ll have to get a move on,” he tells Luke in a gentle, refined voice.</p><p>Luke realises that he will have to pay the bill but the experienced waiter has already second-guessed him.</p><p>“The bill’s been taken care of. Did you enjoy your meal?”</p><p>Luke smiles with his whole face. “It was fantastic!”</p><p>“Good!” The maitre’d signals wordlessly to a junior waiter to clear the table. “You’d better get going. Show starts at 2pm.”</p><p>Luke nods as if he understands completely but it isn’t until he splits the third envelope outside that he realises he will indeed have to hurry. This time there is a single theatre ticket for a performance of A Winters Tale and another brief note.</p><p>Barbican at 2pm. Listen carefully to Leontes’ speech, Act 2, Scene 1.</p><p>Luke makes a hasty path to the theatre, a good ten minutes away.</p><p>“He’ll be at the theatre,” Luke tells himself over and over, getting it at last. “He’ll meet me there!”</p><p>But there are no familiar faces in the crowded foyer.</p><p>“Hello Luke!” the usher says when Luke hands him his ticket. “You’re in the second row. Enjoy!”</p><p>Luke is seated alone between a serious cheerless family group – mum, dad, two bored little boys – and two older women in serious jewellery and rich colourful clothes.</p><p>No Craig.</p><p>Luke has never been to the theatre, never seen Shakespeare performed. He expects to be bewildered, to lose the plot and ultimately grow bored but from the moment the lights go down he is entranced.</p><p>The fears of stupidity were unfounded. The drama takes him away completely, creates an illusory world that for a few hours Luke inhabits with unerring faith. It is so powerful, so intense, so completely absorbing.</p><p>His face is bathed in love, his fine young skin seemingly reflecting the lights of the stage when Leontes delivers his famous lines:</p><p>There may be in the cup<br/>A spider steeped, and one may drink, depart,<br/>And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge<br/>Is not infected, but if one present<br/>The abhorred ingredient to his eye, make known<br/>What he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,<br/>With violent hefts. I have drunk and seen the spider.</p><p>Luke takes his breath sharply, his skin rises in delicious goose pimples.</p><p>He knows for the first time that curious blend of disappointment and elation when the curtain falls, a sure sign that there will be many trips to theatre in future. When the actors take their bows Luke applauds so hard his hands ache.</p><p>He is smiling to himself as he walks through the theatre, still so immersed in the play that he jumps when the usher touches his arms.</p><p>“Cocktails!” the young man tells him with wicked eyes. “It’s over the plaza, about five minutes away.”</p><p>Luke is grateful and courteous but no longer filled with false hope.</p><p>He thinks slowly and carefully as he walks to the bar. This is what it would be like if I were his, he smiles to himself. If I’d saved him sooner, if I met him in different circumstances.  If I were his, my life would be like this all the time.</p><p>The night is fresh and pretty, the bar is bright and cheerful. Luke thinks he understands now the illusion Craig has created for him – the food, the play, the little letters, the marvellous anticipation that anything could happen. </p><p>Then he walks into the noisy bar alone, painfully aware of his loneliness as he walks amongst the couples and groups to hand the barman the card. The barman smiles as if he is welcoming Luke to heaven, points him to a table and then Luke realises he had it all wrong, there was no smoke and mirrors, no illusion. He sees Craig waiting at the table, a table for two at the edge of the bar near the huge windows where the lights of London shine before them in a glorious spray.</p><p>This is what it’s like when you are mine, Craig says with just his eyes as he stands slightly at Luke’s approach. The fun and the joy of the unexpected, a hatful of tricks and fun and games – this is what it will be like all the time when you’re mine.</p><p>And Luke, hand extended, so excited, knows now that Craig has been with him all day – bought him lunch at his favourite restaurant, taken him to see a fabulous play at his favourite theatre and now cocktails so they can talk about the performance.</p><p>“Sorry I’m late,” Craig says with a smile as he takes Luke’s hand quickly. “Did you enjoy the play?”</p><p>Luke’s breath is so quick he cannot think of any superlatives. “It’s was great! Thank you!” </p><p>“And lunch? Did they look after you?” Craig actually knows they did.</p><p>“Lunch was great too, it was all fantastic.”</p><p>“Did you bring the flies?”</p><p>Flies? Luke looks at him blankly, spooling mentally through the day as he tries to recall the flies.</p><p>“OH! The flies!” Luke produces the little plastic bag from his pocket and places them on the table.</p><p>“Excellent,” Craig says softly as they sit down, their bodies leaning right into each other. “They’re my prop.”</p><p>“Your prop?” Luke laughs. Their eyes lock together, pupils luminous black as they feast on the sight of each other.</p><p>“My prop,” Craig repeats, slightly flirtatious. “I’m shy, so when I’m trying to woo a handsome young man I need a prop.”</p><p>Luke raises his eyebrows. Craig pushes the flies around the table with his long fingers as he leans over to explain.</p><p>“It’s early,” Craig whispers, his breath soft and hot, “and I still have to take you to one last place.” He waits a beat, smiling against the pink rim of Luke’s attentive ear. “Come into my web, said the spider to the fly.”</p><p> </p><p>Part Twenty</p><p>“Come into your web?” Luke laughs out loud in the noisy bar. “That’s the corniest line I’ve ever heard!”</p><p>“Now you know why I need props,” Craig says shyly. He thinks Luke has the most beautiful skin he has ever seen; all soft and creamy but somehow powdery, as if it absorbs rather than reflects the light around him.</p><p>Their eyes meet and the merriment is diluted with a little burst of nerves.</p><p>“I had a great time today,” Luke says as he looks down at the plastic flies. “Pity you had to work.”</p><p>Craig agrees. “It was. But it…well, I, it was..”</p><p>“What?” Luke senses the hesitation and it worries him.</p><p>Craig gently pushes a few little plastic flies across the table and as he speaks lines one little fly at the edge of each of Luke’s fingers.</p><p>“I’d planned to do something else tonight, take you somewhere else, but now I think it’s even cornier than saying come in to my web!” His face is embarrassed, his smile apologetic.</p><p>“What? Where were you going to take me?”</p><p>“Remember when I told you about a really nice beach I knew?” Craig pushes the flies around Luke’s fingertips like a magician preparing to do a trick. “When I told you where I would take you if we were…you know, if we were a couple?”</p><p>Luke sorts through his recent memories and straightens up slightly when it comes back to him. “What? In Wales?”</p><p>Craig nods. “There’s a beach down there – remember I told you that?”</p><p>“You said it was private.” Luke is waiting for him to look up. “It sounded really nice.”</p><p>“It is.”</p><p>“You were going to drive me down there? To Wales? Tonight? To show me a beach?”</p><p>“It’s silly, isn’t it.” Craig shuffles the little flies around quickly as if moving them faster might make his embarrassment dissipate.</p><p>Luke doesn’t speak until Craig lifts his eyes. “I think it’s a great idea. I’d love to see your private beach.”</p><p>                                           00000000000000000000</p><p>The magical friends chat with effortless cheer as they drive through the night.</p><p>“I haven’t got another Sunday off for five weeks.” Craig is explaining how he set up the whole magical day for Luke, how his roster has somewhat thwarted his plans. “And I don’t know what your roster is like.”</p><p>“How did you know I’d have today off?” Luke wonders now, surprised at Craig’s methodical and organised approach to dating.</p><p>“I rang Prescott and asked him.” Craig makes this sound very rational.</p><p>“Do you know him?”</p><p>“We’re the same rank. One of his relief saved my life. No reason why he shouldn’t tell me if you’d be rostered on or off.”</p><p>“Did you tell him what you planned?”</p><p>Craig turns around with an incredulous face, his eye brows raised, his eyes serious.</p><p>“Do you think he would’ve appreciated those details?”</p><p>Luke laughs. “Nah! He would have spewed!”</p><p>“Which is why I told him I wanted to send you a bottle of whisky as a thank you gift, and wanted to make sure you would be there to receive it.” Craig overtakes a lorry and the road ahead of them is black and empty; for a second Luke thinks they can do what they want, go anywhere, that anything might happen. Me and Craig might be the only people in the world.</p><p>Craig’s voice brings him back down to earth. “That’s how I got your address too.” Cars rush towards them once more, cold white lights that flare and speed past them.</p><p>“And the waiter and the usher and…?”</p><p>“They’re all friends,” Craig said. “And they all appreciated the details.”</p><p>                                         000000000000000000000000</p><p> </p><p>Just after they cross the border they stop at a huge garish overlit motorway station and pay too much for milk and wine and coffee and bread. Everything is foreign to Luke and it excites him. He feels they are escaping, running away, conspiring on a magical disappearing act.</p><p>Throughout the rest of the journey they start to touch – a hand will reach at and rest quickly on a leg, the other will squeeze or stroke just for a second; occasionally Craig will takes his eyes from the road and grin at Luke either mid-sentence or when there is a little break in conversation. Luke struggles not to stare in adoration at the beautiful face that is  illuminated irregularly by the lights of traffic heading back to London. Later when they turn off the motorway Luke slips his fingers behind Craig’s head and is surprised how soft and thick his hair is.</p><p>It is two hours short of  Sunday when Craig parks the car at the southern most end of Wales. It is ink-dark and eerie; Luke can make out a few houses in the distant heavy night but around them there is nothing, an endless black that makes his eyes ache when he tries to discern the immediate surroundings.  </p><p>“Are we there yet?” Luke asks.</p><p>“We’re here.” And when Craig opens the door Luke can hear the sea and he remembers something else,  something important.</p><p>“I can’t swim!” he calls to Craig but Craig is busy hauling their overpriced groceries from the boot.</p><p>                                            0000000000000000000000000000</p><p>Craig’s web was more wonderful than Luke could have ever imagined.</p><p>“St David’s,” Craig tells Luke when he asks exactly where they are. “About fifty miles on from Swansea, right around the coast. It’s where my Dad grew up, and after my grandparents died it was my  was my Auntie’s house.”</p><p>They are lying on a worn woollen rug  on a slate floor in a rickety comfortable old house that might be construed (by those who don’t believe in magic) as being untidy. Some of the lights work, some of them don’t. The doors are low and heavy and bang continuously if they’re not kept on the latch. The décor is charming and utterly unplanned: a hotpotch of painted jugs, colourful rugs, cracked eating utensils, heavy curtains festooned with patterns of improbable fruits and flowers, warped bookshelves stacked with yellowing books, the kinds of things that turn up in holiday houses in coastal villages around the world. “We used to come here all the time when I was a kid. Sheila – my auntie - died about eight years ago and left the house to my father and his brothers because she never got married or had kids of her own.  Instead of selling it they kept it so every one can still come here.”</p><p>“So they know you’re here? Your family?”</p><p>“Yeah, they know. Don’t worry, we’re all alone, no one’s going to barge in on us.” Craig gently taps the apple of Luke’s cheek.</p><p>“Good.” Luke pours himself another glass of wine. “It’s just that I wasn’t sure what you had planned.”</p><p>“What, did you think I was going to take you swimming in the middle of the night then introduce you to my family?”</p><p>Craig has lit the fire and there is wine, cheese, some dubious slightly flabby strawberries and a bag of crisps that claim to be leek flavoured. Luke examines the bag of crisps which are sealed in a lurid red and green bag. They don’t sound especially inviting so he takes some cheese instead and stretches back to lay down on his side.</p><p>“I had no idea what you’d planned.”</p><p>Craig takes a chug at his wine. “Well, to be honest, I hadn’t planned anything more than this,” he says with a deferring sweep of his hand. “I just wanted to give you a first date that you’d remember, and I wanted you to know that I’d stay the whole night with you.” The oblique reference to Perry is quick and pain free. “ I needed to have a free Sunday if I did that and like I said, after tomorrow,  I haven’t got one for five weeks.”  </p><p>“Thank you.” Luke delicately sucks little specks of the hard golden cheese from his fingers. “But I can’t swim. And I don’t have my bathers.”</p><p>Craig smirks, his hair shining by the light of the fire. “You don’t get out of it that easily. There’s plenty of bathers here, plenty of towels too. My cousins stay here all the time, they’ve got lots of stuff here in one of the rooms. “</p><p>“You don’t stay here all the time too?”</p><p>Craig shakes his head with his lips pressed tight. “Sometimes. But it’s not much fun on your own.”</p><p>“You’ve never brought anyone here?” Luke is starting to feel very special.</p><p>Craig looks up and smiles. “I didn’t think anyone would appreciate it. I had a feeling you would.”</p><p>                                             0000000000000000000000</p><p> The leek flavoured crisps were about the only disappointment that evening. Craig decided that, if anything, they were mustard flavoured, Luke thought they tasted like burnt knitting.</p><p>They discussed the crisps for quite some time until Craig said unexpectedly, “I’m not really much good at this good kind of thing.”</p><p>Luke is surprised and disagrees. “I think you’re very good at this kind of thing! We’re having a great time! Well, I’m having a great time.”</p><p>“Good. So am I. But I mean, I’m good at the details but not that good at the hard bits.”  Craig looked in the crisps bag as if it might offer some clues.</p><p>“The hard bits?”</p><p>“The – the sexy bits. The seduction.” And to Luke’s delight he went quite crimson.</p><p>“Well, you know I’m not either. So maybe we should stay here by the fire all night.”</p><p>“You want to sleep out here?” Craig looks into the crisps bag again.</p><p>“Is that what you planned?” Luke looks at the crisp bag too. It’s not helping either of them.</p><p>“Well, not really…”</p><p>Luke shifts a little closer.</p><p>“What did you plan then?”</p><p>Craig  rustles the leek crisps, grinning to himself as if recalling a marvellous private joke.</p><p>“What!” Luke reaches out but doesn’t quite touch him.</p><p>“I planned on a huge storm, and cuddling up in the Big Bed out the back.”</p><p>“The Big Bed?”</p><p>“We all used to fight over it when we were kids. It’s huge and really comfortable.”</p><p>Luke considers the Big Bed.</p><p>“Can I have a look?”</p><p>                                      000000000000000000000000000000</p><p> </p><p>The Big Bed is huge, sagging under a tide of brightly coloured quilts, thick oat coloured sheets that have been hemmed by hand and heavy fat pillows stuffed with the down of geese.</p><p>It is a double bed and half as wide again; none of the quilts cover the vast mattress so occupants  - which have included up to five adults and children at any given time – generally commandeer one of the quilts for themselves.</p><p>Luke is impressed. “There’s lots of room.”</p><p>“Lots of room, Craig says quietly, his voice a little shaky. “The mattress is supposed to be eighty years old.”</p><p>“Eighty? I’ve never slept on an eighty year old mattress before.”</p><p>Craig thinks that Luke is actually a lot better at the hard bits than he is letting on.</p><p>“Well, it would be a pity to come all this way and not try it, wouldn’t it?”</p><p>Luke nods with a concerned, serious face. “A terrible pity.”</p><p>Craig moves up behind Luke, a little closer, leans his face slightly over Luke’s shoulder. His breath spreads in a thin warm puff over Luke’s skin; Craig feels him  quiver slightly. “Will you be alright here by yourself?”</p><p>Luke shakes his head. “I’ll be alright as long as there aren’t any spiders.”</p><p>“Ohh. Spiders.” Craig closes his eyes as he moves his face in closer. Luke has an interesting delicate scent, a little like fabric softener, a little like musk, a little peppery. “That could be a problem. This is an old place,  the house is full of spiders. Huge mean Welsh spiders.” He rests his hands very lightly on Luke’s hips,  his fingers wandering with the elegant gait of spiders.</p><p>Luke starts to think that Craig is actually very adept at the hard bits too.</p><p>“Huge mean Welsh spiders? Don’t like the sound of that. Do they bite?”</p><p>“Uh huh,” Craig nods, now nuzzling Luke’s neck, pressing his teeth very softly on tiny seams of skin. “You have to speak Welsh to them to make them go away.”</p><p>Now Luke’s eyes close as the soft mouth makes damp prints on his sensitive neck.</p><p>“I can’t speak Welsh,” he says, almost laughing, slightly gasping.</p><p>The fine smooth skin is flawless under Craig’s lips, tastes divine, slightly sticky and very soft. “Me neither,” he murmurs as he moves slowly to the curl of his ear. “But I can speak Spider with a Welsh accent so that might do the trick.”</p><p>“Maybe you should sleep with me then.” Luke turns around, presses right up to Craig and hands himself over entirely, disappearing into his strong chest, finding himself gently tipped back, falling though space then landing, as if by magic, on a thick warm cloud of colours and feathers,  trapped in the soft centre amongst the long powerful arms and legs, the soft mouth now devouring him as he flails hopelessly, ensnared completely, utterly willing.</p><p>                                          0000000000000000000000000000</p><p>He wakes the next morning to little clicking sounds, like someone is chewing toffee. He feels softness and tickling and finds Craig kissing his belly noisily, smiling up at him when he sees he’s awake.</p><p>“You were covered in spiders!” Craig tells him with lively eyes. “I was shooing them away!”</p><p>Luke has slept very well, not as long as he would have liked but snug and safe and content. He stretches now and wriggles down the bed, meets Craig’s face with his own.</p><p>“Big Welsh spiders?”</p><p>“Dozens of them!” </p><p>“Thank God you were here,” Luke says lazily. Craig is the first person he has ever woken up to; he had not guessed it would be this nice. He wonders if he should tell Craig how happy he is to be with him or if it should  wait.</p><p>“Happy?” Craig asks, framing the sleepy face with his fingers.</p><p> Luke nods and chooses caution. “I love the Big Bed,” he sighs.</p><p>“It’s great, isn’t it? Don’t get too comfortable. Now that you’re up we can go down the beach.”</p><p>Luke peers over the broad shoulder and sees some pale yellow light across the scraps of blue sky.  </p><p>“Will it be cold?” he asks Craig, tugging some quilts around them. Craig gathers him up close to his chest, tucks him under his chin and answers, quite convincingly, “It’s actually really nice this time of year.”</p><p>                                                00000000000000000000000000000</p><p>“Oh Jesus! It’s freezing!”</p><p>Craig was right about the beach –it was very private and very beautiful. He lied about it being nice though. The heavy grey ocean was bitterly cold in the early morning.</p><p>“It’s okay when you get in,” Craig assures him, galloping out further into the cold water.</p><p>Luke’s not convinced,  hugging his chest against the wind.  His skin is coarse with goose pimples and the pale watery sun hanging low in the sky is useless. Craig, meanwhile, is splashing way out past the shallow lips at the shore, out in to deeper water before he turns around and sees the shivering Ashton.</p><p>“C’mon!”</p><p>“It’s cold!”</p><p>“Cold? This isn’t cold! Come on, you won’t warm up if you stand there. Move!”</p><p>Luke needlessly hitches Craig’s cousin’s bathers around his hips and takes a few little steps. His feet are blanched and his toes ache.</p><p>“See?” Craig calls. “It’s okay when you get used to it.” He waits until Luke has waded close to him, the water lapping around their knees. “We can have a hot shower as soon as we get out,” Craig promises, “but I want to do something with you first. Come on.” He grabs Luke’s hand and runs further into the water, taking him with him into the waves, strong now and rushing over them, striking Luke like pails of ice. Craig dives through a wave, leaving Luke shuddering in his wake. </p><p>“Oh Christ that’s cold!” Luke cries, covered in the spray, washed over and over by the incoming waves. There’s no point fighting it so he dives in too and comes up near Craig, so cold his jaw is clacking.</p><p>“Is it that bad?” Craig asks gently as Luke struggles against the strong sea to stand upright. He takes his hand. “Come on, just a bit further out.”</p><p>Luke moves with the water behind him, no longer able to feel his feet, out beyond the line of breakers until the water is almost over his head and high against Craig’s chest.</p><p>“Okay.” Craig draws him to him, carefully wiping the salt water from his face. “You are cold, aren’t you?” He gently strokes Luke’s face dry. “Here, come here.” As Luke shivers, he draws him closer and then unexpectedly hitches him up in his arms, waiting until he has Luke bound in around him, his legs wrapped against his waist.</p><p>“There!” Craig holds Luke up and above the water, his strong arms secure and tight around his back.</p><p>Luke looks around in case he is supposed to notice something, then waits a few more moments to see what is going to happen.</p><p>But Craig is just looking straight at Luke, his face close and glowing in the delicate light as he holds him tight in his arms.</p><p>“You bought me out here in the freezing cold to hold me?” Luke asks with clattering teeth.</p><p>“You’re weightless,” Craig explains, beaming as if he carried the world with no effort. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like, to hold a man in my arms, down here in the sea.”</p><p>“Couldn’t we have waited ‘til summer?” Luke hangs on tight, greedy for the tiny warmth of Craig’s body that spreads over his own.</p><p>“I just think it’s magic,” Craig says delightedly. “It feels like you don’t weigh anything. I’ve always wanted to try it but only with someone who was magic too.”</p><p>Magic! So many things are. </p><p>Luke counts his blessings. The cousin’s bathers are slightly bunched under Craig’s arms, the wind is so cold it hurts his skin now but it brings the spell back again and reminds him how blessed he is to be in this web. He tightens his hold and kisses Craig’s forehead.</p><p>“Well now you know,” Luke whispers with his shuddering voice, the wind twisting around him like a scarf. </p><p>“I do indeed.” Craig kisses him properly in the wide empty ocean, open to the world but not a soul for miles.</p><p>It seems a better time. “I love you,” Luke says when their mouths separate and Craig says it too at the exact same time. “I love you!” they exclaim together, louder now, and a big wave comes from nowhere and sweeps them both off their feet, into the freezing surf.</p><p> </p><p>                                    0000000000000000000000000000000</p><p> </p><p>Oh, to be warm, the pleasure of being warm and dry!</p><p>Luke is wrapped up in the jumpers and sweaters of generations of Gilmore men. His skin is soft and pliable under the many layers of wool and cotton, his hair his dry and his feet are perfectly warm. He wriggles his toes in the thick socks Craig found for him. </p><p>Craig gets into the car beside him.</p><p>“It’s really very pretty here!” Luke says, looking around at the miles of pristine coastline as the engine ticks over.</p><p>“It is, isn’t it?” Craig looks down to the  beautiful beach as he releases the handbrake. “We could came back, if you want…”</p><p>Luke looks out to the sea, his face stern and unreadable.</p><p>“What about the spiders?”</p><p>Craig shoulders relax and he puts the car in second gear. “I’ll save you from the spiders. You don’t have to worry about them ever again.”</p><p> </p><p>The traffic back to London is heavy on this Sunday but means they have a little longer together before the ugly grind of the working week starts again.</p><p>They are talking about food, places they might like to stop for lunch when a car, going a lot faster than it should be, cuts in front of them.</p><p>“Bloody idiot!” Craig says, pressing the brake slightly. “Where are the bloody police when you need them?”</p><p>Luke laughs. “Do you want to book him?”</p><p>Craig seems to be considering this so Luke adds, “I wasn’t serious.”</p><p>“No, I know you weren’t – sorry, I was just reading the sticker on his bumper bar.”</p><p>It is iridescent and shiny, each letter a different colour.</p><p>MAGIC HAPPENS</p><p>it says in glittery letters.</p><p>Luke scrunches up his nose in a cute smile, turns to Craig knowingly.</p><p>“It really does, doesn’t it?”</p><p>Craig stares ahead of him, his face slightly dreamy as he thinks of the magic that happens if you’re lucky.</p><p>“You know what the moral to all of this is?” he asks presently.</p><p>Luke is wide eyed and attentive. He hadn’t counted on a moral.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Craig assumes his most authoritative voice and demeanour. “Be nice to spiders.”</p><p>Luke waits for the rest.</p><p>He waits quite a few seconds.</p><p>“That’s it?”</p><p>“That’s enough,” Craig says, watching the road. “Be nice to spiders. You never know who they might be. They have very difficult lives and they have an important place in the world. So be nice to them.”</p><p>“Does being nice include kissing them?” Luke asks despite himself.</p><p>“Well, if they ask nicely, yes, it does.” Craig wears a sliver of satisfied smile.</p><p>But Luke thinks the moral to his magical story is different:  be grateful for your blessings and remember that they often come in disguise. He rolls his eyes at Craig but watches intently as the bright letters on the car ahead twinkle in the sunlight, throwing small sparks of magic into the air as the car rushes forward.</p><p>Then he turns to Craig once more, squeezes the hand on the gear stick and feels a few fingers immediately squeeze back, the spell bouncing back between them, over and over, back and forth as if caught in a web in a slight breeze. Luke gives private thanks to be caught like this, trapped and possessed in the most powerful of spells by the most magic of men.</p>
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